System that is gritty AND heroic?

[harpy]

Is there a system out there that provides a gritty combat system but which isn't particularly deadly to the PCs, allowing for a heroic campaign to be played out?

I know for some the response would be: "No, does not compute" but I don't care... I still am in search of it!

I'd want visceral combat results, giving plenty of detail, GMs and players shouldn't be using their imagination in seeing the results of combat. However, the system still favors the PCs, the narrative demands of the story demand that the get through the campaign as heroes, so the system should also have some kind of ablative "fate" resource that keeps them from getting killed. It's fine, and even desired, that by the end of the campaign the PCs are covered in system mechanically derived scars, lost digits, even limbs, but they don't get knocked out of the overarching story with death unless the PC decides to push their character too far.

My memories of Rolemaster and MERP allowed this to get pulled off, but is there something else?
Edit/Delete Message

[Gametime]

You could try Iron Heroes. It has a focus on nonmagical combat using the d20 system, but the heroes are robust enough that they aren't likely to die unless heavily outmanned.

[Tengu_temp]

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay? It is gritty, but you do get fate points that can save you from dying.

Exalted as Heroic Mortals could count. No charms, each combat is a serious threat of injury, infections and sometimes even lost limbs, and you're much weaker than any Exalted characters. On the other hand, the game is still heroic and you can stunt and use Willpower to perform various impressive feats.

[Tinydwarfman]

Gurps! Gurps! Gurps!

[Salz]

Check out Harnmaster from Columbia Games. It can be like what you want if you tweak it a little bit and there are no instant death hits unless you use an optional rule (I think...) but you're much more likely to die from blood loss. A great system that I would highly suggest you look into.

[Totally Guy]

Burning Wheel has a pretty gritty combat system.

You plan out a series of moves in advance, so you might script:

Exchange 1
Volley 1: Maintain, Strike
Volley 2: Close, Counterstrike
Volley 3: Maintain, Feint

These moves are all compared to what your opponents decide to do. So for Strike you'd roll your sword skill, (D6 dice pool) if your opponent is doing something defensive, like Avoid or Counterstrike it's a versus test and you need to beat their roll. If they're doing a strike or other offensive type moves themselves you need 1 success to hit.

The damage is calculated in an interesting way too.

So a sword is an "Add 2" Weapon. To get more damage you have to roll 2 more successes than you needed.
So rolling your Sword 3 skill could result in an Incidental hit from 1 or 2 successes or a Mark hit for 3 successes.
Dagger is Add 1 so you could score a Incidental on 1 success, a Mark hit on 2 successes, and a Superb hit on 3 successes.

Then you see what your damage is. A Mark hit for a standard sword for a character with average Power is "6".

So the victim looks to see what a 6 is worth to him.

What's a 6 worth to the Yeti? It's a superficial wound.

What's a 6 worth to the fairy? Kills it outright.

To Mr Average a 6 is a Midi wound and would result in an injury that cause a loss of 2 dice to everything, all skills and stats. Once any Stat hits zero he gets knocked out. This is how most of our fights have ended.

There was one time that our wizard was hit with a throwing knife, but he had a Persona point to spend, this allows you to be saved at a great cost. The knife went straight through the Compass of Destiny. (Good job he was carrying the Macguffin else saving himself that way could have cost him use of a leg or maybe a hand, it would be up to him to decide but it had to be bad.)

It's a very crunchy game. It also hands a lot of narrative control to the players, so GMing involves lots of reacting to situations.
Player: "He's a wizard, I expect he has a secret lab under his tower. I want to test Wizard-wise to see if I know this."
GM: "Obstacle is 2, roll 2 successes"
Player: "Woot! 2 successes!"
GM: "Then, yes, it turns out the wizard does indeed have a secret lab under his tower." (Despite it not being in any notes the character's knowledge test makes his assertion canon.)

[JaronK]

Shadowrun 3 works. SR4 might, but I don't know it very well. It's very easy to get serious injured and taken out of the fight, but you're far more likely to actually survive bleeding than to just die. It's cyberpunk though, not fantasy.

JaronK

[RagnaroksChosen]

wasn't merp updated?

[sailor_grenoble]

off the top of my head (note that one and a half of these games are in French only):

GURPS (depending on your zoom level, the system can be as detailled as you want)
Qin: the Warring States (gets even better with Shaolin et Wudang, but this book hasn't been translated to English yet)
HARP (variant of Rolemaster, if you are familiar with RM/MERP, HARP will be extremely easy to get into))
Runequest (either Chaosium Runequest 3 or Mongoose Runequest II, I'm not familiar enough with the other editions to comment on them)
Yggdrasill (adventures in mythic Scandinavia, only in French, though)

[*.*.*.*]

Dark Heresy



You'll die while protecting the Imperium!

[Swordgleam]

Another vote for Iron Heroes. First thing I thought of when I read your title.

[Morty]

Riddle of Steel. It definetly has a heroic feel - it's somewhat based on Arthurian legends and the like and you have "spiritual attributes" that represent the situations in which your character can act extraordinarily competently - but the combat is brutal, gritty and realistic. Still, it might not fit your expectations because if you act stupid, dying is very easy in this system.

[holywhippet]

Dark Heresy



You'll die while protecting the Imperium!

That system can see you die really quickly though depending on player choices and what the DM throws at you. It does fit the bill though.

[FatR]

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay? It is gritty, but you do get fate points that can save you from dying.

Exalted as Heroic Mortals could count. No charms, each combat is a serious threat of injury, infections and sometimes even lost limbs, and you're much weaker than any Exalted characters. On the other hand, the game is still heroic and you can stunt and use Willpower to perform various impressive feats.
Exalted fails "isn't particularly deadly" criteria, because lethality in combats that are meant to be actually challenging is at least on WFRP level, but you have no fate points. More importantly, playing Exalted as Heroic Mortals is highly boring. Stunts can only do so much to disguise the fact that you're doomed to spam the same basic attack ad infinitum (no matter how many mortal-level powerups you obtain).

WFRP/Dark Heresy is a better idea. These games are gritty as grit, but PCs have plot-editing powers that allow them to survive long enough despite that.

[Amiria]

Mongoose Publishing's Conan D20. Sadly, they just lost the license but the stuff is still available.

It is a very heroic, low(er) magic, gritty sword & sorcery setting. There are optional rules for Permanent Damage (scars, mutilations, etc) in the "Warrior's Companion" sourcebook. Like Iron Heroes, Conan D20 is based of and very similar to standard 3.5 D&D.