M4- A rather simple system (Peach)

[Orzel]

I think my simplistic RPG is on it way. This is what I got so far. Thanks to anyone who helped.

The Core Rolls
Accuracy: 3d6 vs the target Difficulty
Damage: Xd6, where x is to Offense Skill's Discipline.

Disciplines:
There are 4 Disciplines: Martial, Magic, Mind, and Might.
Each Discipline has 5 skills.
Skills are normally Normal rank and therefore are the same tier as the discipline.
Each time, a character's discipline increase, he may change the rank of 2 skills.
Normal rank skills are the same tier as the discipline
High rank skills are one tier higher the discipline
Stunted rank are one tier lower the discipline
Favored rank skills are 2 tiers higher the discipline. Each Favored rank skill must have a Stunted rank skill in the discipline.

Martial
-Melee: Your ability to fight enemies at close range, with weapons or unarmed.
-Ranged: Your ability to fight enemies at long range
-Armor: Your ability to cover your weak spots.
-Cunning: Your ability to fight intelligently, use tactics, or cheat.
-Command- Your ability to lead others

Magic
-Conjuration: Your ability to transport matter and energy via magic
-Psychic: Your ability to transport and create mental images via magic
-Creation: Your ability to create matter and energy via magic
-Resistance: Your ability to halt magic
-Arcana: Your magical Knowledge.

Might
-Strength: Your physical prowess and athleticism
-Health: Your fortitude and toughness
-Acrobatics: Your reflexes and dexterity
-Speed: Your quickness and... speed.
-Stealth: Your ability to stay unnoticed.

Mind
-Intelligence: Your ability gather info and general knowledge.
-Personality: Your charisma
-Technology: Your ability to understand and use technology.
-Awareness: Your perception and ability to find things
-Willpower: Your mental strength.


Tiers, Life, and Spirit:
The sum of a character's Disciplines is its tier. A human child or small animal is Tier 1. An adult human is Tier 2. An ogre with 4 Might is Tier 4.
A character has Life equal to the sum of their Might and Martial tiers times 5 (minimum of 5). When a person Life reaches 0, they die.
A character can heal Life with the Creation or Technology skill. A character can heal twice the skill's tier of Life.

A character has Spirit equal to the sum of their Mind and Magic tiers times 5 (minimum of 5). When a person Spirit reaches 0, they die.
A character can heal Spirit with the Command or Personality skill. A character can heal twice the skill's tier of Spirit.

A character with Arcana of 5 or more or Intelligence 6 or more, can resurrect the dead to 5 Life and Spirit
10 minutes of rest restores Life and Spirit equal to the sum of all Discipline.


The Accuracy Roll.
In this system where the difference of ability of the characters and obstacles matter more than the active character's ability. When Stan the trained swordsman fight another trained swordsman, his chance of hitting is about 50%. Against Grandmaster Liu, his chances drops to about 16%. But if he was working as a town guard and meet up with a simple unskilled street urchin, hits might be guaranteed.

Compare the difference of the defender's Defense tier or the obstacle's tier with the attacker's Offense skill. This determines the Target Difficulty. Roll 3 six sided dice and if the sum matches or exceed the Target Difficulty, you hit and deal damage or succeed the skill check.

{table=head] Difference | Target Difficulty
Offense greater by 1 | Target Difficulty= 3
Offense greater by 1 | Target Difficulty= 5
Offense greater by 1 | Target Difficulty= 6
Offense greater by 2 | Target Difficulty= 8
Offense greater by 1 | Target Difficulty= 9
Offense = Defense | Target Difficulty= 10
Defense greater by 1 | Target Difficulty= 11
Defense greater by 2 | Target Difficulty= 12
Defense greater by 3 | Target Difficulty= 14
Defense greater by 4 | Target Difficulty= 16
Defense greater by 5 or more | Target Difficulty= 18 [/table]


The Damage Roll.
Damage rolls are simple. Roll a number of d6s equal to the Offense Skill's Discipline and subtract that from your target's Life.
But sometimes you may not want to deal full damage. Before rolling damage, you may choose to sacrifice a die or two and spend 3 Spirit to cause special effects. Dice created by sacrifice cannot be sacrificed.

Accuracy (repeatable): Sacrifice a die of damage to add an extra die to your Accuracy roll.
Relax: Sacrifice a die of damage to heal 1d6 damage.
Extra damage (repeatable): Sacrifice a die of damage to add 2 extra dice to your Damage roll.
Stun: Sacrifice 2 dice of damage to destroy 1d6 of the target's spirit
Defend (repeatable): Sacrifice 3 dice of damage to create a perfect defense.
Penetrate (repeatable): Sacrifice 3 dice of damage to ignore a perfect defense.
Break: Sacrifice 3 dice of damage to destroy 2 perfect defenses.


Perfect Defense:
If you are hit; you may spend 1 Spirit, activate a perfect defense (if you have any), and all damage deals by the attack. Perfect Defense can be ignored by the Penetrate action.


Combat:
There are 3 rounds of combat:
The Initiative phase. This is only done once, normally. Roll 1d6 + Speed. This is your initiative. Higher Speed breaks tie.

The Support phase. Lowest Initiative goes first. All actions in this phrase cost 1 spirit. During this phase you may:
Reroll everyone Initiative.
Switch the tier of skill for another in the same discipline.
Prevent the switch of one skill by another character (if your tier for the skill is equal of higher).
Heal Life or Spirit.

The Attack phase. Make accuracy and damage rolls. Highest Initiative goes first

Martial arts:
Close attack: Melee vs Armor
Ranged attack: Ranged vs Acrobatics
Sneak attack: Stealth vs Awareness
Power attack: Strength vs Armor
Grapple: Strength vs Acrobatics
Tactical attack: Cunning vs Intelligence
Poison attack: Technology vs Health
Kung fu: Acrobatics vs Melee
Mounted attack: Command vs Armor
Bull Rush: Strength vs Melee
Intimidating attack: Personality vs Willpower
Keep Away: Ranged vs Speed
Snipe: Ranged vs Armor

Spells:
Magic blast: Conjuration vs Resistance
Magic hazard: Creation vs Resistance
Illusion: Psychic versus Willpower
Mind control: Psychic versus Health
Fear: Creation versus Willpower
Summoned Creature: Conjuration vs Armor
Created Creature: Creation vs Armor
Transformation: Arcana vs Acrobatics
Curse: Conjuration vs Health
Breath attack: Conjuration vs Acrobatics

[erikun]

The Disciplines themselves seem pretty clear, at least how everything is supposed to be organized. It seems easy to make a magical character that focuses on creation and ignores conjuration, though, with little drawback.

The Tiers system doesn't quite seem to make sense, though. Is the tier the total of the character's Martial, Magic, Mind, and Body? Or just the highest value? If it is the first, then children and small animals are technically dead: they will either have 0 Life or 0 Spirit by default, because they only have 1 point to put into 4 different ability scores.

The table for the Accuracy Roll doesn't make any sense.

For damage, the line "Dice created by sacrifice cannot be sacrificed" could be better explained. I'm guess it refers to the Extra damage option. Speaking of which, it seems like it makes the most sense to "sacrifice" all your damage dice, even if you just sacrifice it all for more damage. That seems like a roundabout way of doing it.

Your three-phase combat only has two phases. :smalltongue: The first thing I notice is that you can spend Spirit to heal Spirit/Life, which I assume means that everyone is assumed to be at full health for all battles.

Ranged vs. Acrobatics seems to ignore both shields and cover, two things which are far more effective against archery than attempting to dodge an arrow.

If Conjuration is rolled against Resistance, would Creation be rolled against the same?

Why is Strength rolled against Cunning (grappling, I assume) rather than Acrobatics or Melee?

What exactly would a Technology vs. Health involve?

[Jolly Steve]

This seems to assume that people are actively parrying against ranged weapons (since their Defence stat matters).

This would fit if it's a martial-arts-movie type of world, but not otherwise.

[Jolly Steve]

It might be worth nothing what happens to a target's Defence stat when the target is unaware of being attacked.

[Orzel]

The Tiers system doesn't quite seem to make sense, though. Is the tier the total of the character's Martial, Magic, Mind, and Body? Or just the highest value? If it is the first, then children and small animals are technically dead: they will either have 0 Life or 0 Spirit by default, because they only have 1 point to put into 4 different ability scores.

There is the character's tier and the discipline/skill's tier.
A dog has Martial 0, Magic 0, Mind 0, and Body 1. His character tier is 1. His Body tier is also 1.

A farmer has Martial 0, Magic 0, Mind 1, and Body 1. His character tier is 2. His Body tier is 1.

Maybe I should replace character tier with level.

The "Minimum" Max Life or Spirit is 5



The table for the Accuracy Roll doesn't make any sense.

Fixed. Bad Copypasta.



For damage, the line "Dice created by sacrifice cannot be sacrificed" could be better explained. I'm guess it refers to the Extra damage option. Speaking of which, it seems like it makes the most sense to "sacrifice" all your damage dice, even if you just sacrifice it all for more damage. That seems like a roundabout way of doing it.

Each sacrifice costs 3 Spirit. Gets expensive and risks getting Stunned to death.



Your three-phase combat only has two phases. :smalltongue: The first thing I notice is that you can spend Spirit to heal Spirit/Life, which I assume means that everyone is assumed to be at full health for all battles.


The initiative phase always happens after the attack phase, but initiative is only rolled at the start of combat or if someone spend their support phase to roll it again.



Ranged vs. Acrobatics seems to ignore both shields and cover, two things which are far more effective against archery than attempting to dodge an arrow.

If Conjuration is rolled against Resistance, would Creation be rolled against the same?

Why is Strength rolled against Cunning (grappling, I assume) rather than Acrobatics or Melee?

What exactly would a Technology vs. Health involve?

That's where I got stuck.
My original idea is to make "Shields and Armor" grant a defense bonus versus Melee, Strength and Ranged with a speed penalty. "Glyphs and Wards" grant a defense bonus versus Conjuration, Creation, and Psychic also with a speed penalty.


As for X vs X, I got lost and just paired stuff up. Yeah, Strength rolled against Cunning is dumb.

Martial arts:
Close attack: Melee vs Armor
Ranged attack: Ranged vs Acrobatics
Sneak attack: Stealth vs Awareness
Power attack: Strength vs Armor
Grapple: Strength vs Acrobatics
Tactical attack: Cunning vs Intelligence
Poison: Technology vs Health
Kung fu: Acrobatics vs Melee
Mounted attack: Command vs Armor
Bull Rush: Strength vs Melee


Spells:
Magic blast: Conjuration vs Resistance
Magic hazard: Creation vs Resistance
Illusion: Psychic versus Willpower
Fear: Creation versus Willpower
Summoned Creature: Conjuration vs Armor
Created Creature: Conjuration vs Armor
Transformation: Arcana vs Acrobatics
Curse: Conjuration vs Health
Breath attack: Conjuration vs Acrobatics

[Orzel]

Okay I fixed the attacks.

As for weapons and damage types, I thought I could just have them reduce the cost of sacrificing dice to 2.

Slash/Ice - Accuracy
Hack/Fire- Damage
Electric/Piercing- Penetrate
Blunt/Sound- Defend


I don't know if i should limit access to damage types and attacks (like feats/perks) or not.

Any ideas?

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I like it, it's a good intro to roleplaying for beginners. :smallwink:

[Geno9999]

I noticed a typo in the Accuracy Roll chart, where the Offense greater by..., it repeats the 1 before the 2, where I would assume you meant 3, 4, and 5. Copypasta error?