Hi, Sorry for my bad english

I changed home recently, more or less of life, and with all the things a start, i started to rewrite my old homebrew game. Funny to think after ten years without finishing it, i still receive emails asking for it (i can't say i not fell very warm of that, you imagine).

I changed a lot the combat system, And i work on a new and - i think - more enjoyable one.

Here a few things :

The game is "furry oriented". Characters can go from mouse to elephant. Of course, differences are not as big as in real life, But a human still have six more life and strengh than a mouse...

The setting is "Ancient ages" fantasy. Technical level is around early iron age, maxed at republican Rome for the really, really advanced ones (who look like juggernauts, as you can imagine). With probably some historically inacurate things here and there, but still.

The game have (i still do some rewriting here, too) theses characteristics : Intelligence, Will, Agility, Dexterity, Strength, Perception, Charisma, Sociability and Life.

A mouse will have around 1 Life and Strength, rats, bunnies, squirrels or cats have 2, foxes have 3, lynx have 4, wolfs or deers have 5, humans or leopards have 6, cougars have 7, tigers and horses have 8, bulls have 9, rhinoceros have 10, elephants have 11.

Somes species can have "traits" (i'm not sure for the name. Playing D&D from the 80' will kill me, sometime). Traits are bonus to characteristics, like better reflexes, enhanced smell, claws, etc.

You have also skills.
Buying 1 point cost 1 "evolution/creation/experience" point.
But each level in a skill cost it's level in evolution points. If you want your character having 5 skill points in, say, "Sword mastery", you have to pay 5 evolution points (and before that 4 for the level 4, 3 for the level 3, etc.).

As you can see, you can easily being so-so at something, but it's more costly to have your character being a "f. god of war".

There is no cap in skills. You can go level 20 if you can affort it.
Some skills are harder to learn than others. Than mean their corst start not at 1, but maybe a 2, 3 or even more.

Combat system emphasis on tactical : Even a really skilled fighter can be killed if attacked by three not-totally-moronic peoples. Situational bonus can go from 1 to 5, and stack. Wounds give malus. And there is rules for manoeuvering (example, going away from one or more of your attackers).

Turn organization :

Actions are simultaneous. Each people declare what action it take by the order Agility + skill + some bonus (but often malus, like wounds).
A character with high can decide to wait for peoples less "gifted" to declare first, or declare first, as he wish.

Having attacked the last turn give a malus, having your attack stopped (by armor, shield, parry...) last time a bigger malus, being wounded last turn an even bigger.

Mean you can perfectly, if you have the better total, decide to wait for your "less gifted" opponent to declare an attack, then parry with your shield AND attack him in the same turn.

That give you a malus, but increase heavily the damages...

Rules differenciate dodging and parrying, or the spear/saber/sword attack types.

To hit :

Agility+skill+d20 for each opponents. Highest win.

It was d10 first (in fact, the entire game was "all d10"), but i fear a single d10 was not enough for counter-balance the bonuses/maluses.
The bonus you can add are numerous, because the rules to make the character take account of the situation :
- You can stack secondary skills, like "thrusting", or "dodging" (you can dodge without knowing dodging, of course. The skill only mean you have trained to dodge better).
- Some spells add bonuses.
- Situation bonus can range from attacking at more than one, being higher (or bigger).
- Your ennemy can be wounded, chocked or put off balance by a powerfull attack (you imagine that an elephant can kick away a mouse even if the mouse parry the blow), etc.
- You can know the place and not him.
- You have blocked his shield, or even weapon (and some weapons are good at blocking).
- You have a short weapon in a crowded area.
- Etc.

Well, i know a good fighter make it's own chance, and a templar was not able to kill dozens of armoured muslims for nothing, but i want to give some chance of "fight", if you understand what i mean. Then the D20 replacing the D10. Or maybe 2d10 ? Advice ?

Damages :

Take de Damage value of the weapon : That's the number of dices (d6, d10, what you want. They just need to have even faces) you have to roll.

For each even result, you do damage. Mean if all your results are unevens, you just proved your opponent you are only a big sack of fat, you pussy !

Example :

You character use a sword with a damage value of 5 (totally imaginary value)
Mean you roll 5 dices.
- I roll the dice (really) : 4 - 5 - 2 - 6 - 2 . 4 evens.

- Your character is human (strength 6), with the Strong trait (+1 in strength).

You multiplie the number of even results (here 4) by the strength of your character, here's 7 (6+1).

In the example, you just made 7*4 damages to your opponent. That's 28, by the way.

I don't know if i use the margin result of the "to hit" roll. It's more logical, but i need to do some tests for seing if the margin don't make the damages going over the top. Advice ? Think the poor mouse before write (yes, that what block me).

Damages are reduced by armor of course and as armor are localized.

My problem here is there is few damages differences each attack. Here, that's only 5 possible.
But if i use the strengh for the damage roll, than mean for the strongers characters (like an elephant) i will have lot of dices.
And for the mouse it's worst, since with only 1 dice (for a mouse without Strong trait), that mean i have one chance on two to do NO damage at all on an hit.

Wounds :

I have some problem here, with the fact there is a world between a mouse and an elephant. Even if the rules try to push the characters to "make their chance", a missed dice can kill the mice (sorry).

The old rule are that. I can take all advices for "upgrading" them to the new combat rules :

The wounds are differenciated in levels, from scratch to fatal.
Trying to find english words for that :

Scratch : Damages not exceeding life.
benign : Not exceeding Life x 2
Serious : Life x 3
Grievous : Life x 4
Fatal : Life x 5

Each time a character is wounded, you add a "wound" point in the good category.

Each "level" of wounds give you a malus at ALL your actions :

Scratch : None (Scratch make you "wounded" and give you a big malus on the next combat turn. Of course, "poisons" attack often just need a scratch).
Benign : -1
Serious : -3
Grievous : -5
Fatal - 10

NPC are killed by a fatal wound in a "central" area, and lose the area in other cases. PC need a second fatal wound for that (mean a PC can NEVER be killed in one shot. I love old epic movies) and never lose an area.

If a character has a total of wound malus bigger than some value, he die. And yes, you can die from a scratch to the foot.

There is also a rule for forgot the pain (and ignore part or all the wound malus), heal the wounds, and agravating the wounds (but i still work on it).

Advices, all ? Please, think of the mouse

Oner potential solution to the the mouse getting killed is that you don't necessarily need to start your strength at 1.  You could start at 3, or 5 or something. This also leaves you some room below the bottom end for other things that even less strength than your typical mouse; a baby mouse, for example. 

As for using the to hit roll for damage effects, that would certainly favour the mouse if you shift to 2d10, because the roll will be weighted toward a value more in the middle of the range than would be the case with 1d20.  On the other hand it might make the elephant virtually unkillable; you'd have to test and tinker with that.

Or you could do something like adding the level of success in the to-hit roll to strength to determine dice rolled, although this still gives ytou a lot of dice.  Alternately, you could apply strength as a modifier, so that if you got 5 attack successes, and rolled 3 damage success, that would give you 15+strength.

The only modification to your wound levels I would suggest is replacing "benign" with "minor" or "trivial" or "slight".

Thank you for your answer.

Yes, giving 2 or 3 to the mouse is a solution. But i was afraid that make a big multiplication for strong species.

I take notice you plan to send babies mices wage war.

An Elephant is not unkillable. Elephants are not very agile. They probably use a big weapons in big "slash" attacks for pushing ennemies away (or cut in half those who miss their escape action).
Plus, The game use the Life stat as the size, and give the difference between the two as a bonus to be hit with ranged weapons (javelins, rocks, arrows...). That mean a mouse throwing a javelin at an elephant got +10 to hit...

Using Strength as modifier is an idea, but don't that make species really alike ? The difference between a mouse (STR 1) and a squirrel (STR 2) is minimal if strength is only a modifier.