damage in a success level system (Action Dice)

[John Blaz]

So with all the help from fellow Forgers, I managed to hammer out the basic outline of a system I'm working on (shown below in maroon). The problem I'm having is deciding how weapons should deal damage. I basically want characters who are spending lots of Action Dice on one attack to deal crippling blows, while the people who only use 1 or 2 on an attack can get more attacks in, but do less damage with each hit. Any suggestions are welcome.

Action Dice are d10s.
Stats are rated from 1 to 10.
Skills are rated from 1 to 10.
Task resolution: roll x d10s equal to/less than the Skill, this counts as 1 success. If no Skill applies, use a Stat instead.
Your Stats limit the amount of successes you can get. So with a Strength of 3, melee attacks wouldn't benefit from having more than 3 successes achieved on one attempt.
Perks (feats) can raise the amount of successes allowed on an individual skill by 1 at a time. (So with 3 Strength, and the Melee Success Perk +1*, that character can achieve 4 successes at a time, and they all count)

Combat initiative: Whoever has the most unspent Action Dice may act. Initiative counts down from the highest to the lowest amount of unspent dice. Characters get a starting pool of AD equal to their Speed stat + 1d6. At some point, this pool regenerates.

*not working title, lol

[Vulpinoid]

I've thought about this a couple of times since the last thread...

How about making duplicate die results much more significant. Weapons do damage at a couple of basic levels...light (worth 1pt), medium (worth 2pts), heavy (worth 4pts), instant-kill (worth 6pts), overkill (forget the points).

If you successfully hit, it typically does the minimum damage. Death is 6 points. So six successful hits from a weapon dealing light blows will take you out, three hits from a weapon dealing medium blows, 2 hits from a heavy weapon, and 1 from an instant-kill or overkill.

If your attack attempt hits and any two of your dice show a matching pair, upgrade the damage by a degree (light to medium, medium to heavy, etc.)

If your dice show a matching triple (or two matching pairs), upgrade the damage by 2 degrees (light to heavy, medium to instant-kill, etc.)

If your dice show a matching four-of-a-kind (or a pair and a triple, or three matching pairs), upgrade the damage by 3 degrees (light to instant-kill, medium to overkill, etc.)

Then we throw in a defense roll, if it's successful, it drops the damage by a degree...players scoring pairs and triples on their defensive rolls may reduce the damage to less than a light wound (which will basically count as a glancing blow with no real effect).

Just the first idea to come to mind.

V

[John Blaz]

That's a pretty intuitive idea V, I like it. I still want to use different HP for the different target areas on the body (head, torso, left arm/leg, right arm/leg), and I think that could work well for this. This also means that weapons would be pretty similar I'm assuming, so anything small like a knife would deal light, and then small caliber guns medium while all rifles would probably deal heavy damage. I could see just about all melee weapons dealing light damage, any thoughts on how/if the character's strength should/could factor into this?

[Hereward The Wake]

I could see just about all melee weapons dealing light damage

I would suggest that a melee weapon do more than light damage. A sword/axe/mace against uprotected flesh woul dbe pretty devastating with a reasonable hit, even knives, when they've hit the right place. your counter action and armour worn would then reduce that.
best
JW

[John Blaz]

I had a little time to think about it (I was at the Jeep dealership getting a tune up), and I had an idea based off of Vulpinoid's suggestion in a way. Assign a base damage to all weapons. So a Knife might be 2, while a .50 caliber rifle round would be 12. On any amount of successes, the weapon deals base damage. On matching pairs, it deals base damage plus an extra 2 damage per pair (1 damage per matching die). On triples, it doubles base damage, and on quadruples the base damage is tripled.

Just a thought. Not sure if that's too static/ not random enough, or if it gives a good idea of how lethal weapons are.

[Vulpinoid]

Assigning weapons a damage value rather than a damage band is probably better for differentiating between different types of weapons.

As a flip side to this, armour could be given a similar rating to show how much damage it naturally absorbs.

Knife [2] versus a leather jacket [1] does less damage than it normally would. Knife [2] versus Riot Armour [6] does nothing, unless someone manages to get enough successes to push the knife's damage rating above 6 (or unless they've got some kind of supernatural strength that automatically boosts the damage from melee weapons).

.50 caliber rifle [12] versus a leather jacket [1] is still pretty much an instant kill if it connects. The same rifle [12] versus Riot Armour [6] has a decent chance of killing, and will probably do some grievous damage even if the target knocks the damage down by a degree through a successful defence.

If you were going to push the extremes in this type of this system, you could go up to vehicle and mecha level damage using pretty much the same types of number. Depleted Uranium Rail Gun [20] versus Titanium Alloy Reinforced Assault Armour [18]...The gun is an instant kill on even the most heavily armoured regular trooper, the armour can withstand the attacks of virtually any melee weapon, and even .50 caliber rifles have only a tiny chance of getting through. But when matched with each other, the weapon and armour become a more interesting fight again.

Basically, for every 3 or 4 points of weapon damage progression, the potential kill factor doubles (in an exponential fashion)...which is also useful because it keeps numbers from getting too unwieldy.

But to keep this kind of effect happening, you'd have to avoid the notion of doubling and tripling damage on dice multiples. Any doubles would add 2 damage, any triples would add 4 damage, any "four of a kinds" would add 6 damage. Keep the modifiers as integer additions rather than multipliers.



On a related note about keeping the hit locations, you can give character different levels of armour protection on different parts of the body, like in the old Cyberpunk 2020 (I'm not sure if this concept was maintained in the Fuzion system). In this way, combat can get a bit more strategic. Do I add my extra degree of success to apply a bit of extra damage to this location, or do I use my extra degree of success to move my damage from his heavily armoured torso to his lightly armoured abdomen?

This sort of links back into the concept of different areas of the body having more or less impact when it comes to hit points.

Since you're using d10's, lets work on the assumption that a human body can take 10 damage levels before it passes out. The hit location system could provide a maximum damage for a certain body part hit. 3 for an arm, 4 for a leg, 6 for abdomen, 10 for torso or head.

Combined with the other system, if a weapon does huge damage but it only hits the arm [maximum of 3 damage], then the arm might be amputated or vaporised, but the character might still be able to run on adrenaline for a round or two before the shock kicks in.

If the same weapon sliced right through the ribcage [maximum of 10 damage]...dead.

Again...just some more ideas.

V

[John Blaz]

Assigning weapons a damage value rather than a damage band is probably better for differentiating between different types of weapons.

As a flip side to this, armour could be given a similar rating to show how much damage it naturally absorbs.

Basically, for every 3 or 4 points of weapon damage progression, the potential kill factor doubles (in an exponential fashion)...which is also useful because it keeps numbers from getting too unwieldy.

But to keep this kind of effect happening, you'd have to avoid the notion of doubling and tripling damage on dice multiples. Any doubles would add 2 damage, any triples would add 4 damage, any "four of a kinds" would add 6 damage. Keep the modifiers as integer additions rather than multipliers.

That was my idea for armor, armor has an Armor Value equal to the amount of damage it absorbs per attack. I even had an idea for armor degrading as it absorbs damage, basically it has the Armor Value, then the total amount of damage it can absorb before becoming useless. So a leather coat might have AV 1/ 15, where after absorbing 15 points of damage, it is utterly destroyed.

On a related note about keeping the hit locations, you can give character different levels of armour protection on different parts of the body, like in the old Cyberpunk 2020 (I'm not sure if this concept was maintained in the Fuzion system). In this way, combat can get a bit more strategic. Do I add my extra degree of success to apply a bit of extra damage to this location, or do I use my extra degree of success to move my damage from his heavily armoured torso to his lightly armoured abdomen?

This is another thing I've had in place for basically every system I've worked on. A leather coat isn't going to protect your legs, after all.

But let me ask you, Vulpinoid, what sort of damage can you recommend for a basic array of weapons? I'd like combat to be realistically deadly to an extent. Basic weapons (from weakest to strongest) would probably be Knife, Baseball Bat, 9mm, .45, .308 (hunting rifle), .50 caliber... etc. And I'll assume for now you're basing damage off of the hit locations' damage capacity.

[Creatures of Destiny]

Statistaically you're far more likely to die from a knife wound than a gunshot. There's a reason - knife wounds are large and messy. A pistol wound can also be large and messy (large caliber, dum-dums, explosives, shot-guns) but often it's a small hole precisely made. A machine gun obviously makes lots of holes and so does more damage (but you may want ot work this out as more hits rather than bigger hits).

Baseball bat would be the least deadly - more likely to knock you out than kill you. Realistically there are al ot of other factors -like the angle of entry (you've seen ganster movies where they point the gun downwards from up high?) which afects how much of your body the bullet travels through and how much bouncing around it does inside. So widely varying results based on attacker skill and chance are actually pretty realistic - someone can kill you with a rolled up newspaper (really!) while people have survived mines/grenades and machine gun.hits.

This stuff is often counter-intutive so if you want realism, then do some research into ballistics, if you want something that feels realistic, then just base it of movies/books you consider realistic.You may find realistic to be unplayable if for example if there's a lot of action but heroes aren't disposable (ie charcter creation is long and PC's are expected to be fully rounded characters).

[Vulpinoid]

I would have said something very similar.

Realism, good for gaming and good for story are often three very different things.

Types of wounds can be vary dramatically, and this can be reflected through a shock system in addition  to "hit points" (maybe like the "Mortal Wounds" thread that's also going around at the moment)..or a fatigue system where lots of little hits build up and can knock someone out but not damage them severely in the long run...hit point loss to represent bleeding.

And that without even getting into toxins and infections.

A good quick combat system is a bit of a holy grail. But I think you've gone some good steps along the way at this stage.

[Of course, that might just be because you think some of my ideas are good...so I'll naturally share a synergy with something who seems to think on my wavelength.]

V

[DWeird]

Hi! I've been following this idea for a while now, seems a really neat way to handle combat, given enough polish.

My suggestion isn't a damage mechanic per se, but maybe you'll find a use for it anyway.

Regarding the Action Dice refresh mechanic - you weren't too specific, so correct me if I'm wrong: every once in a while, a time comes when a certain number of AD are given to player, right?

Now, what if you could spend some of your ADs to add to this number? Say you have a refresh rate equal to 6. You spend 2 dice out of the 7 you have, so for the rest of the round you have 5 AD left... But for every refresh after this, you'd get 8 AD instead of 6. My thinking is this - when you're in a fight, you don't just dish out and take in damage - there's manouvering, playing with cover, trying to trick the opponent, and so on and so forth. When you spend ADs to add to your refresh rate, you're essentially spending time to establish a long-lasting advantage (fiction-wise, this could be getting some cover, or getting a really good aim at your foe, or studying the enemy's fighting style, or whatever).

What does this have to do with the damage mechanics you were looking for? Well, when you get criticals, as according to Vulpinoid's suggestion, you get extra damage (I'll leave the exact mechanics for you and the pros in this thread to handle)... And you get to knock off some of the foe's AD refresh rate. This can work either in conjuction or parallel with your HP for bodyparts scheme.

Lessay Joe aim's for Pete's arm with baseball bat and gets three-of-a-kind or some such, which ain't too shabby but is no insta-kill either. Pete takes whatever damage he's supposed to take, AND loses 3 AD refresh to boot. If you ditch bodypart HP, the 3 AD may mean that the Pete is slower precisely because his shoulder's out of its socket. If you keep bodypart HP, well, whether the arm is healthy is established independently of that one particular hit... So that'd mean Joe's hit made Pete lose his concentration 'cause of the pain, or maybe pushed him straight into a pile of brahmin dung, or whatever. Either way, Joe's hit just made Pete move about that much slower.

You wouldn't even have to do damage to get some effect in. Lessay Joe has a knife, and Jack has "Titanium Alloy Reinforced Assault Armour". Well, Joe probably can't really hurt the guy, but he CAN jam that knife of his into one of that thing's joints, making it hop helplessly on one foot, which is not only funny as hell, but also maybe gives Joe enough time to run away or some such.

Dunno if this is useful to you at all, but I hope it is. G'luck with your project either way, I'll be keeping an eye on it!

[John Blaz]

What does this have to do with the damage mechanics you were looking for? Well, when you get criticals, as according to Vulpinoid's suggestion, you get extra damage (I'll leave the exact mechanics for you and the pros in this thread to handle)... And you get to knock off some of the foe's AD refresh rate. This can work either in conjuction or parallel with your HP for bodyparts scheme.

Part of the idea of the Action Dice originally was that they partially represented fatigue (I actually forgot about that part until your post, DWeird!) but I like this idea. I'm still unsure of the refresh rate, I obviously want to keep it simple, but I was thinking of giving the characters a 50/50 chance to refresh a little AD each time they act. With the combat system as is, there are no real "rounds", certain characters could end up going several times before others, and there's no real way to say "Ok, the first round is over, on to round 2" (at least as far as I can tell). But I will use your idea on knocking off AD for good attacks.


And as for Creatures of Destiny and Vulpinoid's thoughts on damage: I was originally going for a realistic feel, not necessarily "real" realism, but what you could expect from movies etc. And I think it may be easier to only have body parts become damaged due to critical hits (doubles, triples etc.). This way, all damage would come from one HP pool (like most games), but criticals to the arm might need special medical attention to get it back in working order. It would also mean less book-keeping for the players everytime they take a hit.

I also like V's idea to allow multiple successes to count towards aiming the damage at a certain location or using those successes to deal more damage to the default/ random location, although to get the full effect, it may make more sense to keep track of body parts' individual conditions instead of using one HP pool.

[DWeird]

How about this for a refresh mechanic:

You have a set of dice. Each unspent die is put on the table, with a certain number showing of a player's pick. Every player also has a die of different colour - lets call it an Opportunity die. You roll it at whatever time seems appropriate, and then everyone involved in the battle at hand gets as many new ADs as they had ADs of a number that equaled that of the Opportunity die.

Lessay Joe has a 1, 4, 2, 2, 6 and Karl has 9, 10, 4, 3, 6, 6.

Joe chooses to roll an Opportunity die, rolls a six, and lets out a muffled swear as he gets one extra die and his opponent gets 2.

Um.

I guess this setup would be too random, and can easily produce an avalanche effect (whoever gets the most ADs initially will be more likely to get even more ADs in the future), but maybe that can be fixed by allocating them into a separate pool?

Like, you have Action Dice and Preparation dice, and you can add from Action Dice to Preparation Dice whenever you want but not the other way around. And the only way to get Action Dice is from the Preparation dice with the Opportunity die, as per the mechanic described above.

Hope that doesn't sound too complicated?

Anyway, methinks that could work well, especially if coupled with hard-hitting damage mechanics, which'd make a guy's hand a wee bit shaky when he raises a fistful of AD and starts thinkin' "...what should I DO with these?".

*incoherent rambling mode activate!*

There could be issues, like... people keep rolling numbers that don't match anything of anyone? You could fix that by... allowing people to roll some/all of their Preparation Dice as ADs (which means losing Preparation Dice, of course) when an Opportunity roll is made.

And... in case people have a really low number of dice, meaning they can't refresh via Opportunity and can't dump their stock? Maybe you could have it so that, when you do the Opportunity roll, you roll all of your Preparation Dice along with it, and get as many new Preparation (Action?) Dice as as the lowest die result rolled.

*incoherent rambling mode end*

Hope it's not like I'm designing your game for you. For some reason, I get long-winded when I write. Hope you find this useful!

[John Blaz]

That's an interesting idea, DWeird, I might try it out though it seems a little cumbersome. I was thinking along the lines of The Elder Scrolls games use of fatigue, where it just regenerates constantly, but optimized for the tabletop and the fact that turns don't have a set time. Maybe characters should get 1 AD every turn, or 1d6 every few turns or something, then critical hits would damage the character, and also destroy a few AD (accounting for fatigue and weariness from taking a massive hit).

[DWeird]

Well, if you don't use it, I'll poach it for my own ends some day. :3

Now, uh, the reason I suggested what I did is because you don't really have turns. <.< Time flow (in terms of when you get to move and how much you get to do) is decided entirely on the number of ADs you have, right? So "turn" seems sort of out of place, unless I misunderstand your mechanics completelly. Which can totally happen!

So. Um.

How does your turn system operate?

[John Blaz]

DWeird: You're right. There are no turns. The idea is to forget about turns in the "I attack; you attack; I attack" sense, and focus on the fluidity and chaos of combat.