Yet another homebrew system? Oh come on...

[Pronounceable]

I had an idea. I was gonna make a new system with huge emphasis on a gimmick: Only thing you ever do while playing is subtraction! Then I noticed it's a stupid idea to start with, but it was kinda late. Observe:

Everyone has 100 hit points, representing mostly stamina. Every time you perform an action, you lose some HP and remove some HP from the other guy. The very last HP is the one representing anything close to health, you lose your last HP and you're down (dead, passed out or just a flesh wound).

There are a bunch of things to do in combat such as normal attack, power attack, feint, full defense, blablabla. It's kinda like a MTG game more than a bog standard RPG combat. Also there's no combat magic available for now.

The most standard action is obviously the good ol' Hit the Other Guy with Weapon At Hand. It costs 5 HP and deals 1d20 to the attackee. Averaging all rolls to 10, two guys standing still and trading blows will be losing 15HP total per round and on 7th round the first guy to hit will win.

Then there's stuff such as:
Full Defense (costs 5 and remove 10 damage from next hit you take)
Flurry (deals 3d20 damage to both sides)
Power Attack (costs 15 and does 20+1d20 damage)
Feint (costs 10 dealing no damage but next attack deals double)

Then the idea of once per battle abilities such as Enrage (heal back to 100 but then every attack will cost double till the battle ends) or Riposte (reflect the next hit back onto attacker without taking damage) occured to me. They're sure to spice up the game. At that point I had the aforementioned enlightenment that the gimmick was stupid.
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At this point, this is barely more than mental exercise. It seems like it could be an entertaining combat system but I might be a bit biased. Therefore, what does the Playground think of this? Could this be a viable and fun game? Should I bother to tinker with this more? Would there be others helping out here and there if I did?

[IcarusWings]

It seems like a really interesting idea that I'd love to see worked on. It would need tinkering with, but it looks great.

Although I would say to change the name from HP to something like EP (Endurance Points), just cos' Hit Points will just remind people of HP in D&D, and they might wonder why doing actions takes away from that.

I'd also suggest a mechanic to recover HP by doing nothing (or just little) on an action. Representing taking a breather.

[Unrest]

Actually, sounds totally cool! (Somehow, it reminds me of Suikoden-style duels, where there was just Attack, Power Attack and You-Get-F*ed-If-You-Power-Attack-Me Defense.) I'd like to see that developed. There is also a number of options for customization (with weapons with different effects), but not an overwhelming one. Although, yes, this would probably work only for 1-on-1 fights, but if properly thought about... If I were CERN, I'd give it a green light!

@IcarusWings: SP. Or simply Stamina. If a jRPG doesn't know what to call some depletable resource, it calls it SP :smallbiggrin:

Edit: But no, really, what was the reason you dropped it, cnsvnc? I may be kinda hyped now but I don't see any real mechanical problem which couldn't be solved.

Unfortunately, it seems it is impossible to use in PbP, or any kind of place where you cannot make a choice simultaneously with your opponent, and then have the actions go off simultaneously, without a referee. IRL, you'd just have scraps of paper with the names of your available moves, put one of them in your hand, and then reveal it at the same time. But over the net, you would need to have an automated system (like an IRC chat system with commands) that would need to operate it. However, THEN it would be the perfect thing to do with a friend on a chat when you don't know what to talk about :d

[IcarusWings]

Unfortunately, it seems it is impossible to use in PbP, or any kind of place where you cannot make a choice simultaneously with your opponent, and then have the actions go off simultaneously, without a referee. IRL, you'd just have scraps of paper with the names of your available moves, put one of them in your hand, and then reveal it at the same time. But over the net, you would need to have an automated system (like an IRC chat system with commands) that would need to operate it. However, THEN it would be the perfect thing to do with a friend on a chat when you don't know what to talk about :d

You could PM your actions to the GM, who then posts them to the thread. Could work fine apart from filling the GM's PM box to an inhumane degree.

EDIT: And yeah, SP works better.

[Pronounceable]

Greenlighted, eh? That's encouraging. Will refine.
*tinkertinkertinkertinker*

Unfortunately, it seems it is impossible to use in PbP, or any kind of place where you cannot make a choice simultaneously with your opponent, and then have the actions go off simultaneously, without a referee.
Simultaneous actions? I was aiming for good old turns. How is it impossible? What? Who? Where? Confuzzlement.

Also gonna call it percent. You're at 45% seems a pretty clear statement.
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As for actual tinkering, first issue is more combatants. I don't see why it wouldn't work as is, but I'm quite sure it won't. Will run a few simulations. Dunno what the problem is therefore I have no solution.

Next issue is magic. Specifically, is it there? Magic could be more or less exactly the same thing as normal combat actions but WITH MAGIC! Which is entirely lame. Or there could be no combat magic. No magic missiles or hold persons or hastes. Which I approve. Magic is gonna be MAGICAL and do stuff that can't be done normally (like instantly killing anyone who doesn't have the mcguffin or creating a magical guardian that has 500% and regenerates 10% each round or becoming immune to any weapon except the legendary Sword of Hurtiness). Obviously my strangehold on magic will be tight for that "pulpy" feeling. Is that the right adjective? Nevermind.

Yet another issue is variety. The crossbow is identical to the dagger, halberd, mace, axe, sword, whip and broken bottle now. This doesn't look right. Mayhaps there should be specific weapon actions. Or there shouldn't and weapons should modify the numbers of combat actions instead. Even both?

Another thing that could be thrown in is range and facing (which could require a grid). The dagger can only attack the front square whereas sword could attack 3 front squares with halberd being able to hit squares beyond adjacent. Which will also necessitate rules on turning and movement. Plot thickens...

[Unrest]

Simultaneous actions? I was aiming for good old turns. How is it impossible? What? Who? Where? Confuzzlement.

Had the Suikoden style duels too much ingrained in my mind. The point was that playing simultaneously made you play much more carefully. You weren't going to go all out attack because they guy could just as well block you and then you're toast. It generally changes the way you think if you absolutely don't know what the enemy's gonna do. With turns, well, I think it gets much more predictable - but I don't know how the simultaneity would work in the long, more complex run, either.



Also gonna call it percent. You're at 45% seems a pretty clear statement.

It's as clear as when you know you have 100 SP total. And it would be nice for, I don't know, Boss-things to have more, right? But with percents it would be awkward to buy yourself a necklace that gives you +5%... +5% of what? Of percents? So I have 105% so that someone can damage my percents more? :smalltongue: Percents imply some absolute referent and that's something that doesn't fit on a battlefield, where opponents are sometimes (likely not in PvP) on various power levels.



As for actual tinkering, first issue is more combatants. I don't see why it wouldn't work as is, but I'm quite sure it won't. Will run a few simulations. Dunno what the problem is therefore I have no solution.

Another thing that could be thrown in is range and facing (which could require a grid). The dagger can only attack the front square whereas sword could attack 3 front squares with halberd being able to hit squares beyond adjacent. Which will also necessitate rules on turning and movement. Plot thickens...

What appealed so much to me was that there would be No turning or movement. Such a gimmick system works best as a very simple system, where you don't have to note every foot you move from left to right. From a combat system it would turn into a tactical combat system - there's too much of these already and the gimmick won't make it stand out enough. It would be perfect, IMO, for fights where it's You vs. Them and you patiently wait to beat each other up (FF yes.).



Next issue is magic. Specifically, is it there? Magic could be more or less exactly the same thing as normal combat actions but WITH MAGIC! Which is entirely lame. Or there could be no combat magic. No magic missiles or hold persons or hastes. Which I approve. Magic is gonna be MAGICAL and do stuff that can't be done normally (like instantly killing anyone who doesn't have the mcguffin or creating a magical guardian that has 500% and regenerates 10% each round or becoming immune to any weapon except the legendary Sword of Hurtiness). Obviously my strangehold on magic will be tight for that "pulpy" feeling. Is that the right adjective? Nevermind.

Oh come on, there's a dozen things you can do with magic. Just putting fireballs in there doesn't do the trick, but when we come to mini-fying, paralyzing, poisoning, petrifying, mind control, and like you said, protective magic - that's a field to be really thought of. One thing that has to be avoided is falling into the 3.5 Fighter vs. Wizard discrepancy. The difference, to be pictured, would need a Venn diagram: they both can do some things, but each has their field the other is not capable of emulating. That's how I'd see it. And it's "pulp", I believe.



Yet another issue is variety. The crossbow is identical to the dagger, halberd, mace, axe, sword, whip and broken bottle now. This doesn't look right. Mayhaps there should be specific weapon actions. Or there shouldn't and weapons should modify the numbers of combat actions instead. Even both?

They likely would need to modify something, but don't overdo it. This game has a great simplicity appeal, so the last thing it needs is overdoing.

[Pronounceable]

Upon reflection, leaving the system specialized for duels look like better option. It's quite hopeless in a 2+ vs 1 battle without giving the "hero" stronger actions. Mayhaps some sort of minion rules down the line can be whipped up, but keeping the initial flavor is more appealing.

Besides there's gajillions of bog standard DnD inspired games out there. Adding one more to the pyre is futile.

Adopting Unrest approach, there'll be no movement rules. Or rules for pretty much anything else. Focus will be on tacticalish duels. Which means - for some inconceivable reason - enemies will always be as many as players.

DM would be free to use whatever rules for anything outside combat. We don't care for stuff outside battles here. That's still assuming there'll be no magic actions in combat. Or magic items that affect combat rules. Which keeps narrowing down the niche but is cool.

That leaves us with variability issue. Simplest solution would be to divide weapons into categories and put +s for users of bigger/better/badder weapons. +5 per rank difference:
Unarmed -> Miscellaneously Armed-> Small Melee Weapon -> Normal Sized Melee Weapon -> Large Melee Weapon
Ranged duels could have smaller difference. But prolly better if we just consider it all about aiming. So no modifiers in ranged duels. Unless shooting rockets at archers which shouldn't be happening anyway.

Obviously ranged enemies won't be taking potshots at our heroes, that sort of thing just doesn't happen. >_> They of course could, but that sort of thing is beyond our jurisdiction now.

And now that we've established this, we could have mage duels as well utilizing all sorts of weird defenses, attacks, counterattacks and counterdefenses. Obviously such magical attacks against a hapless muggle without the mcguffin end with instant charred body.

[Unrest]

Am I the only person to be getting the impression that the flavor that's leaning over it all is the samurai...? I mean. Clean duels, no unfair advantaging through numbers, no / hardly any magic.

As for the weapon categories, it's usually taking the +x / -y / +z_if_they_have_-z type bonuses. As in, for instance only, of course: +3 damage, +3 cost, -2... speed? Duh, UNREST! You gotta figure the basics first! >.<

So, what would be your starting point, cnsvnc? (Will try to think about it when more time presents itself to my devourage)

[IcarusWings]

Upon reflection, leaving the system specialized for duels look like better option. It's quite hopeless in a 2+ vs 1 battle without giving the "hero" stronger actions. Mayhaps some sort of minion rules down the line can be whipped up, but keeping the initial flavor is more appealing.

Besides there's gajillions of bog standard DnD inspired games out there. Adding one more to the pyre is futile.

Adopting Unrest approach, there'll be no movement rules. Or rules for pretty much anything else. Focus will be on tacticalish duels. Which means - for some inconceivable reason - enemies will always be as many as players.


I'd rather try and trim it to make it better for those sorts of things rather than just saying "let's just stick with duels", but it's your choice after all. Any chance I could commandeer bits of this for my own uses to develop that aspect? All credit going to you of course.

[Unrest]

I'd rather try and trim it to make it better for those sorts of things rather than just saying "let's just stick with duels", but it's your choice after all. Any chance I could commandeer bits of this for my own uses to develop that aspect? All credit going to you of course.

True dat. I believe a little Creative Commons license would be in place... :smallbiggrin: I'll try to fry some bacon up when workload lessens.

[Pronounceable]

Anyone's free to yoink whatever they wish to.
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I'd rather try and trim it to make it better for those sorts of things rather than just saying "let's just stick with duels", but it's your choice after all. Any chance I could commandeer bits of this for my own uses to develop that aspect? All credit going to you of course.

While it'd be nice to whip up rules for crowded battles, simple math tells us that one guy facing two will be down 25% per round while opponents will be -15% and -5%. It's very unlikely for one to win against multiple opponents unless he has some pretty buff moves. But if he can have those buff moves, why can't the other two? Next thing you know we got an arms race on our hands. Or you could say not everyone gets 100%, which begs the question: How do we decide who gets how many?

Not to mention the whole tactical shenanigans more than one opponent presents. Flanking, assisting, combined moves... Such stuff would need more rules (least of which is action order) which would complicate matters.
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Now that I've thinkered on variety business, keeping da rules as simple as possible looks most agreeable with me. If the other guy has a bigger weapon than you, he gets a +%. Size matters. Also if the other guy has heavier armor than you, he gets another +%. I briefly entertained the idea of armor giving "damage reduction" but I'd keep the number of different things small. So armor just another +% but smaller than weapon difference. Two guys in shorts boxing are equal, as are dueling samurai wearing scalemail (did they wear scalemail? no matter). But one boxer guy in shorts against armed and armored samurai is decidedly one sided.

Main rule of thumb is +2 for weapon, +1 for armor category difference. I'm sticking with my own weapon categories mentioned before for lack of an alternative suggestion so samurai's katana has +6 on unarmed guy. Armor categories would obviously be none -> light (leather)-> medium (scale)-> heavy (chain)-> very heavy(plate).

Since samurai armor is what we'd call medium (I think) it's another +2. Therefore every time the samurai attacks the boxer he'll deal an extra +8 damage. So while equal combatants statistically end at 7th round (-15% per round for both sides), this battle will see boxer losing 23% per round. He's statistically toast.

The most extreme difference would be unarmed, unarmored vs. hugely armed, very heavily armored: a whopping +12 which almost doubles the average "dps" of 15.

One thing I didn't consider is shield. Which would be just another +1 or maybe +2. Important thing to remember is that +s are all relative. The ironclad juggernaught swinging around 2 meters of steel who'd stomp the hapless bandit to dirt isn't that unstoppable against another ironclad juggernaught wielding a longsword and a shield.
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At the moment, this is the grand total of rules that exist. The biggest appeal of this is its simplicity. I'm aiming to have as few actual rules as possible. The tacticalish part where you try to overcome the enemy should be the main focus. So the most important bits of system are the combat actions. I'm planning to give everyone a bunch of attacks that they can use at will plus a special move that can be used only once per combat, picked from a list of such special moves.

Normal moves would be along the lines of:

Attack (-5%): Most basic attack that everyone has using whatever they're wielding. Deals 1d20.

Power Attack (-15%): A powerful attack using equipped weapon. Deals 1d20+20.

Flurry (-3d20%): Very fast series of attacks aiming to wear out the opponent. Deals 3d20 to both combatants.

Feint (-10%): An attack aiming to mislead or confuse the opponent to force an opening in his defense. Deals no damage but empowers the next attack which will deal double damage.

Defense (-5%): Forgoing offense to focus on defense, this move makes the next damage taken decreased by 10.

Batter (-25%): A devastating attack that also knocks down the opponent if dice roll is 16 or higher. A knocked down opponent will not be able to attack next turn. Deals 1d20+15.

Dazzle (-15%): A complex attack that will prevent the opponent from acting next turn on a roll of 11 or higher. Deals 1d20+10 damage.

Counterstrike (-10%): A counter attack that will damage the enemy after he attacks on next round. Deals the same amount of damage enemy does + 1d20.

The above actions are (I think) pretty fine. If you disagree, explain how to fix them. Or you can come up with more actions. But combatants will only have an as yet unspecified number of actions they can do. I'm thinking maybe 3.

OTOH, special moves are supposed to change the tide of battle if used right. Unlike normal moves, they can be done once and don't have a cost.

Frenzy: User heals fully but every attack cost will be doubled till the battle ends.

Riposte: User reflects the next hit back onto attacker without taking any damage.

Bloodlust: The user will shrug off the damage from next attack and be healed triple of that instead. This healing will allow the user to exceed 100%.

Smite: Deals the amount of damage user has sustained to the opponent.

Determination: User will heal fully but won't be able to use any action other than basic attack till battle ends.

Special abilities will be tied to combatants and have to be somewhat justified. A barbarian warrior might frenzy, a paladin of honor and virtue may not. As a general guideline special moves don't involve rolling. Because I think that looks neat. You can also disagree with that.

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Flexibility seems like an appeal too. We could fluff the numbers up as a duel between samurai, a game of tag between snipers, gunslingers' showdown, mighty sorcerers who attack each other using eldritch powers and summoned horrors, jedi vs sith or the good old paladin vs orc. Just fluff up the combat actions in a suitable fashion and you're set.


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