Combat Design

[Cilvyn]

Hello folks,

I’m working on a system and hope to gain some feedback from you on the combat system.
Quick setting background:
The system uses firearms and supernatural beings (Think alternative historic timeline, Dracula/Frankenstein 19th century London in which all horror literature is real).

A link to the PDF for reference: HERE (https://smallpdf.com/nl/result#r=87b411bc2ca9e4e00d67552b077854e4&t=share-document)

For the purpose of this scenario we use D12s


I started out with D20s, but that makes for too big variables, so I want to see how D12s work. D10 could work as well, but I feel it leaves little room for variables. Also a +1 on a scale of 1-12 is different than on a scale of 1-10. I like the first better.

Characters have attributes:

Ranged Skill
Melee Skill
Strength
Dexterity
Toughness
Intelligence
Charisma
Willpower
Perception


How to make attack rolls:
A combatant needs to roll below a threshold, which is usually their skill value modified by a difficulty level or external situational modifiers.
Skills can improve modifiers (a bit like proficiency) and combat circumstances play a part as well.


Yes I like crunch, but I also want things to make sense and be realistic and logical. The Unique selling point of this sytem is that combat is done simultaniously and that characters have (barely) no restrictions when improving their characters by the use of spending XP to learn talents and skills and improve attributes. Characters do not gain levels and don't gain more HP or a big increase in damage. A character who has spent 10.000 XP will die just as easily from a sword to the face as a recruit who just spent 1000. Ofcourse battlehardened warriors can endure more damage than others, but you get the idea. So I want combat to be as realistic as possible and using situational modifiers will encourage players to make use of their enviroment in stead of just charging in, swinging their axe and roll the same attacks over and over, all the time.

For example:
Viktor is wielding a pistol and wants to shoot a vampire marauder.
Viktor has a Ranged Skill of 7 and has a talent for handling pistols which gives him a +1 when using a pistol.
The vampire is at point blank range, which means Viktor has a +2 modifier for shooting at point blank range.
The player needs to roll a 10 or below.
The result is a 4 which means Viktor shoots and hits the vampire.


This is different from D&D, since it doens't depend on the enemy's AC if you hit or not, rather this system measures how good you are yourself with a weapon, the downside is, that in theorie you can improve so much you could have a 12 bonus and thus always hit. Also 12 would be a cap, so having more bonus would not work.. which can also be a good thing

Damage is calculated as follows for ranged attacks:

Degree of success + weapon damage - Target toughness - target armor


This is where it gets tricky and there the math really starts. With a d12, your average roll is 6.5. Most systems try to implement a success rate of 70%. I don't mind this to be a little lower, since situational modifiers will alter this rate a lot.
If a character can have a maximum attribute of 6 (I think this would be a good baseline. Maybe 7, I'm not the best mathmetician). that would be a little under 50%. I think it is wise to have players be able to improve their weapon propficiency. I want to do this by group. So a character can learn up to a +3 bonus for a weapon group. In viktor's case this is pistols. That would be a 9 or 10. This is already pretty high, let's say this Point blank thing is indeed something a character gains a +2 bonus on, you hit the 12 pretty fast. On the other had, when fireing from a large distance you can issue a -4 pretty soon. Also a character might be able to use a aim action to improve their roll by a bit. I would really hope you can give some feedback on these calculations.


Viktor rolled 6 degrees of succes
The pistol of Viktor has a damage value of 5
The vampire has a toughness of 6
The Vampire is wearing a leather jacket which does not provide any bonusses against bullets


The shot deals 6+5-6-0 = 5 damage


pretty straight foreward, although I am not sure whether or not to use dice for the weapon damage part. Static numbers have the downside that some weapons can maybe never actually damage a target and it removes some sort of excitement factor for rolling damage. But then again a bullet never deals exactly the damage damage, so having dice add something good. I donÂ’t want weapon damage to dictate the bulk of the damage, because I want degrees of success to have a big impact on the damage part.



Another Example
Elizabeth is wielding a silver coated axe and wants to hit a werewolf
Elizabeth has a Melee Skill of 5 and is an Axe expert which gives her a +3 bonus when using axes.
The player needs to roll an 8 or below to hit
The result is a 4 which means the axe hits the werewolf.
The werewolf tries to parry the attack as a reaction, but fails the roll (still have to decide how this works)

Damage is calculate as follows

Degrees of success + weapon damage + strength - Toughness - armor


this is a bit the same, except that melee weapons don't have these high variables because of range, and there are other rules for melee combat with parry rules. I imagine when two characters both fight with a melee weapon, they do not hit that often. You can't parry all attacks, just 1 per round, although there are talents that let you parry more attacks. The silver of the axe might just have an effect on the regeneration of the werewolf, not dealing extra damage, but who knows



Elizabeth rolled 4 degrees of success
The weapon has a damage value of 6
Elizabeth has 5 strength
The Werewolf has a toughness of 9
The werewolf does not wear any armor


4 + 6 + 5 - 9 - 0 = 6 damage


In my opinion is melee damage much more lethal than ranged. I mean both can kill you pretty easily, but a bullet in your leg is a little less destructive than an axe to the shoulder. I feel strength should weight in here. The downside is that for melee combat a player needs 2 stats in stead of 1. I can also remove this part and just let the weapon have a higher damage value.

Alright, this already is quite a lot. I hope you have gotten my idea, got some ideas yourself and want to share them and discuss!

Thank you very much.

[arkangel111]

I think it gives some love to the poor d12. Ultimately it sounds like the d6 system though. You may want to look into it. It does seem though like your taking the long way around for your math which could lead some to feel like it's unnecessary calculations. Maybe give a Parry or block stat for melee and a dodge stat for ranged? Just do a static value or maybe even a die roll D4, D6... giving some randomness but this way would lead to even more math so I suggest a static bonus, maybe everyone gets a 1 by default but you can purchase it higher up to +3 or such. Have block only work with a held object though like a shield. One thing I think you are failing to take into account though is D12's aren't very common which means people likely won't have a ton just sitting around. Heck if I lose the D12 in my sets, I don't worry about buying one I just take the loss. D6's and D20's though I'd be more willing to buy a new set if I lost them, just because of their prevalence in most systems. Granted this is only a problem when you are starting out with a new system, once it picks up steam people would be more likely to have D12s.


Using your rules I would word it something like this instead...

Original
Viktor is wielding a pistol and wants to shoot a vampire marauder.
Viktor has a Ranged Skill of 7 and has a talent for handling pistols which gives him a +1 when using a pistol.
The vampire is at point blank range, which means Viktor has a +2 modifier for shooting at point blank range.
The player needs to roll a 10 or below.
The result is a 4 which means Viktor shoots and hits the vampire.

Viktor rolled 6 degrees of success
The pistol of Viktor has a damage value of 5
The vampire has a toughness of 6
The Vampire is wearing a leather jacket which does not provide any bonusses against bullets

Modified
Your weapon does 5 damage vs my Vampire's Toughness of 6. So -1 total. So you need at least 2 successes to deal any damage with each success adding 1 damage.
Your DC is 7 ranged +1 pistols, but you get a +2 to hit at point blank range so you need a 10 or lower.
*Rolls 6 successes, -1 from damage.
5 damage total

------------------------------------------------

Original
Elizabeth is wielding a silver coated axe and wants to hit a werewolf
Elizabeth has a Melee Skill of 5 and is an Axe expert which gives her a +3 bonus when using axes.
The player needs to roll an 8 or below to hit


Elizabeth rolled 4 degrees of success
The weapon has a damage value of 6
Elizabeth has 5 strength
The Werewolf has a toughness of 9
The werewolf does not wear any armor

Modified
Your weapon deals 6 damage and you have 5 strength. While my werewolf has toughness 9. So you will deal 2 damage so long as you hit. Each success gives you 1 more damage.
Your DC is melee skill 5 + axe specialty of 3 so 8. Roll it.
*Rolls 4 successes* +2 from damage
6 damage total.

----------------------------------------------

It's a small change but it breaks the damage up into 3 small math problems tha most people can solve in seconds, instead of 2 larger problems having to keep track of each modifier and less likely to lead to people wanting to write down everything. I think my suggested way will lead to a less likely chance of missing a modifier and having players want to retcon things, and also a faster more streamlined combat. I mean after players are used to it combat 1 could be shortened to...

Streamlined
Your weapon does 5 damage vs my 6. So -1 total.
Add 2 to your DC for close range!
*Rolls 6 successes, -1 from damage.
5 damage

Much faster and leaves plenty of time for you to embellish on the hit without players feeling like your slogging through a math test. I mean realistically after awhile you'll just need to state your toughness and players could quickly roll and figure it out with little input from you.

[Grod_The_Giant]

A roll-under system! I like roll-under systems. STaRS (see my signature) uses a similar mechanic, so it's def something I've thought about a lot.

The thing that jumps out at me is that "attacking is based purely on your own skill" and "increasing experience doesn't increase survival" are sort of contradictory. I get that you're trying to get rid of D&D's hit point bloat, but...the way you have it right now, the only dial you have for changing a creature's toughness is, well, Toughness. Damage reduction. A scarier foe is almost going to have to have more ability to absorb hits, which sort of undermines one of your design pillars. It doesn't really matter if "guy with a knife" is a non-threat because you have lots of hp or lots of DR-- the net effect is still attacks only taking off a small percentage of your total health.

[Cilvyn]

@Arkangel111

Dice: You make an excellent point about the d12. For designing purposes it shouldn;t matter ofcourse, but I am aware of this problem. Thank you for bringing it up.

Damage calculation: I like this simplification. It shows how the weapon damage and the toughness are a "constant factor" and the DoS really determine the damage. It's a bit of a shortcut indeed, but in essence the same ofcourse. The streamlined version is very nice. For me the "feel" is also very important. Weapon VS Toughness does feel realistic, so that's good.



@Grod_The_Giant

You make a very good point. In the end you can up the tougness and armor to get more damage reduction.
Mathwise, you can choose what route to go. Have players have tons of HP and have the weapons deal more damage, so the DR is just a slim portion of the total. OR have players have just little HP and have weapons deal little damage, so it comes down to DR being a big part of the damage math.

It also about the feel of having just a slim healthpool. I was indeed thinking of lketting damage always have a minimum of 1, this way you don;t get into that limbo state of being able to reduce ALL damage to 0, so even this guy with a knife will deal at least some damage, maybe with talents you cvan increse the minimum damage dealt. Also damage could be rending to ignore a player's toughness bonus and only let armor reduce the damage taken. Werewolf Claws might be an excelent example of this, once they tear through your armor, flesh is not going to withstand the force of a massive claw, while a sword or a bullet is significantly slowed and even stopped by muscles.

Food for thought.

[arkangel111]

Another thing you might want to consider is Criticals. Maybe a 1 counts for 2 successes and 12 counts for a critical failure and always misses. I know some people hate the idea of fumble rules but if you are designing the system with it in mind I have found that it usually works better. I would cap the hit values as well, Ie. always hit on a 1, that way no matter how tough something is you always have a chance to kill it, this goes hand in hand with your minimum 1 damage Idea. And with conditional/environmental modifiers you may not need to worry about capping skill bonuses during design, swinging from the chandelier might impose a -6 to your to hit but my swashbuckling pirate still has a +20 so I just need to not roll a 12. Players can feel free to be more creative when they have extra skill bonuses, and not feel like their points have gone to waste. If you go this route make sure the DM knows that he should always be throwing out environmental modifiers when appropriate, otherwise it might be glossed over in the rules. I mean D&D has conditional modifiers, but its probably one of the least used features, outside of specific scenarios. I'd give several examples, but be clear it's not an exhaustive list.

[olskool]

@Arkangel111

Dice: You make an excellent point about the d12. For designing purposes it shouldn;t matter ofcourse, but I am aware of this problem. Thank you for bringing it up.

Damage calculation: I like this simplification. It shows how the weapon damage and the toughness are a "constant factor" and the DoS really determine the damage. It's a bit of a shortcut indeed, but in essence the same ofcourse. The streamlined version is very nice. For me the "feel" is also very important. Weapon VS Toughness does feel realistic, so that's good.



@Grod_The_Giant

You make a very good point. In the end you can up the tougness and armor to get more damage reduction.
Mathwise, you can choose what route to go. Have players have tons of HP and have the weapons deal more damage, so the DR is just a slim portion of the total. OR have players have just little HP and have weapons deal little damage, so it comes down to DR being a big part of the damage math.

It also about the feel of having just a slim healthpool. I was indeed thinking of lketting damage always have a minimum of 1, this way you don;t get into that limbo state of being able to reduce ALL damage to 0, so even this guy with a knife will deal at least some damage, maybe with talents you cvan increse the minimum damage dealt. Also damage could be rending to ignore a player's toughness bonus and only let armor reduce the damage taken. Werewolf Claws might be an excelent example of this, once they tear through your armor, flesh is not going to withstand the force of a massive claw, while a sword or a bullet is significantly slowed and even stopped by muscles.

Food for thought.

Another way for you to do damage would be to give every weapon a Damage Die (D4, D6, D8, etc...) and then ADD the Degrees of Success to the damage roll. You then SUBTRACT Toughness from that damage to get the final damage. So Viktor is wielding a pistol that does 1D6. He rolls a 5 for damage and adds his 6 Successes to it. His total is 11. Subtracting the Vampire's Toughness of 6 from 11 gives Viktor a damage of 5.

You could even use a WOUNDS system like Shadowrun. Give the PCs & monsters 5 to 10 Wound Boxes and they take 1 Wound for each time their Toughness is exceeded by the Success-modified Damage total. So Elizabeth is using an Axe that does 1D10 and rolls a 6 plus her STR of 5. She has 4 Successes. Her Damage total is 15. The Werewolf has a Toughness of 9. The Werewolf suffers 1 Wound (15/9=1.66). IF Elizabeth rolls a 10, her damage total becomes 19. This exceeds the Werewolf's toughness TWICE (19/9=2.1) so the creature suffers TWO Wounds.

The idea behind the Damage Die is it provides you variable damage while still allowing Skills, and Attributes to contribute to that damage.

[olskool]

A roll-under system! I like roll-under systems. STaRS (see my signature) uses a similar mechanic, so it's def something I've thought about a lot.

Me too. I like the Modiphous 2D20 system but I am a LONG TIME (as in 30+ YEARS) player of GDW's 1D20 Roll Under system pioneered by Twilight2000 V2.2 and carried over into Traveller:The New Era and Dark Conspiracy. GDW's system basically runs like a percentile roll under system but it uses a D20 instead. Skill Assets are formed by combining a Skill (rated from 1 to 10) with an appropriate Attribute or Attributes (also rated from 1 to 10). This determines the AVERAGE chance of success. From there, you use Difficulty Shifts to move up and down the skill chance "ladder." So a perfectly average Skill+Attribute of 10 (5+5) would have...

Very Easy Task [Skill Asset X 3] = 30 or less on a D20
Easy Task [Skill Asset X 2] = 20 or less on a D20
Routine Task [Skill Asset X 1.5] = 15 or less on a D20
Average Task [Skill Asset] = 10 or less on a D20
Fairly Difficult Task [Skill Asset X 0.75] = 7 or less on a D20
Difficult Task [Skill Asset X 0.5] = 5 or less on a D20
Very Difficult Task [Skill Asset X 0.33] = 3 or less on a D20
Formidable Task [Skill Asset X 0.25] = 2 or less on a D20
Impossible Task [Skill Asset X 0.1] = 1 or less on a D20

A roll of 20 Always fails and a roll of 1 always succeeds.

You can add D&D 5e's ADVANTAGE & DISADVANTAGE system to this by inverting it. ADVANTAGE allows you to roll 2D20 taking the LOWER score. DISADVANTAGE would require taking the HIGHER score. This is in fact how we do an UNSKILLED Task. IF you have no skill, you add the relevant Attribute to 0 and roll that total with DISADVANTAGE.

The Attribute portion is also VERY flexible. You can AVERAGE two or more Attributes (rounding down) to get a more realistic skill chance. For example, MELEE COMBAT uses STR & DEX averaged as an Attribute. Climbing uses STR, CON, and DEX averaged.

I have used the system for a long time and love it.

[Maat Mons]

The link says it's expired.

Okay, so there's only one roll made during an attack. This one roll determines both success/failure, and in the case of success, amount of damage dealt. And there doesn't exist any way to become harder to hit, except in melee? Does ranged combat get modifiers for moving targets or targets with cover?

Is there a mechanism by which bigger, more damaging weapons are restricted, or does everyone always wield the biggest weapons they can lay hands on to maximize damage?

Melee Skill seems to be a superior attribute to Strength. Melee Skill increases your chances of hitting, and also increases your damage by virtue of increasing your degree of success. Strength increases damage and nothing else.

If I were standing next to an enemy, holding a rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other, I'd be inclined to shoot them with the pistol. I'd get +2 to hit for being at point-blank range, which also translates into +2 damage because of degrees of success. With the rapier, I'd get no point-blank-range bonus and they'd get a chance to parry. The rapier would get Strength to damage, but that's only helpful if I've invested in Strength, which is an inferior attribute to Melee Skill, so I wouldn't unless I'd already maxed Skill out.

Even with enough in Strength to make the Rapier deal substantially more damage than the pistol, I'm not sure the decreased chance to hit would be worth it. I guess it's cheaper to buy one blessed silver rapier than to keep buying blessed silver bullets. And I'd always keep the rapier in hand even when using the pistol, so I could parry attacks from non-gun-toting enemies, like werewolves. But I'd only see myself attacking with it against enemies too weak to waste a bullet on.

Is there any reason beyond roleplaying why someone wouldn't wear the heaviest armor they can afford?

I think you're underestimating the lethality of firearms in the real world. As far as I know, 19th-century armor wasn't very effective against 19th-century firearms. A bullet shatters bone, tears flesh, and substantially damages tissue in a radius beyond the actual path of the projectile.