Rules for an RPG style combat system

[josh_manga]

Hi, i'm not sure where to post this, i asked around the RPG threads a while back and they pointed me here i think, so here i am.

Basically, what i've got is a question for the community in general. What i'm doing is creating a home system for Role Play combat. Some friends of mine and i play from time to time, and over the years the system has changed continually, and now i'm just trying to get it settled down to one core system that we all can agree on.

I thought i had a fairly balanced system, but when we last played certain unforeseen issues came up with matters of Damage dealt by attacks.

Here it is in a nutshell:

Hand-to-hand attack: Success based on one 20 sided die + Melee Skill vs one 20 sided die + Defense. High roller wins, tie favors the attacker.
Damage dealt: Strength + Weapon stats versus Armor.

Ranged attack: Success based on one 20 sided die (1D20) + Ranged Skill vs 1D20 + Defense (Def).
Damage dealt: Weapon stats versus Armor. (already this will be less damage than Melee, but with the advantage of being able to attack from a distance)

Magic/Psychic attack: Success based on 1D20 + Mind vs 1D20 +Mind (or Faith, depending on the attack)
Damage dealt: Mind + Spell stats vs rare armor. (using Mind for attack and damage means that Magic will be potentially twice as powerful as Melee)

So the problem we see is that the damage dealt is seriously unbalanced in favor of Magic, and seriously unbalanced against Ranged attacks. There's almost no need for an Archer or Gunslinger as the Magic users get ranged attacks that will increase damage with their Level, whereas Archers' damage is limited to their weapon choices, which are limited at this point (short bow, Long bow, blunderbuss)

Also, the point spread across stats becomes uneven.
Right now all the stats needed for combat are: Health, Strength, Melee, Ranged, Defense, Mind and Faith.
A Warrior needs points on Health, Strength, Melee, Defense, and Faith if he wants to survive some magic assault. That's 5 stats to spread points across.
A Mage needs points on Health, Defense, Mind, and Faith. That's 4 stats to spread points across. Granted the Mage wont need much Defense if the warriors are doing their jobs, but the warrior gets no magic protection from the Mage without putting points onto his own Faith, which steals points from somewhere else.

So right now my friends and i are contemplating making Melee do both Attack and Damage (removing Strength from that equation totally), and Ranged does both Attack and Damage (both melee and ranged add to weapon stats for damage)
This will give all three "classes" only 4 stats they need to focus on in order to be functional and balanced and to grow in power.

Anyway, i'm just fishing for outside opinions. I like having Damage and Attack be based on separate stats for characters, but i'm just not sure that it's either necessary or functional that way.

Thanks,
josh.

[mechana2015]

Why are ranged shots so weak for damage? Unless you're throwing a rock at someone, ranged weaponry tends to hit with as much as (or more) kinetic force on a more focused point, as a melee attack.

[goldenspines]

Moved to Gamer's Galore.

[Cognitive Gear]

My friends and I have used many home-brew systems over the years, and some of these issues were solved in the following ways:

Damage issues:

All damage is mitigated by armor, unless otherwise specified. Yes, this includes magic and psionics. (There are ways to bypass armor with both spells and weapons, however. Including but not limited to critical successes)

Stats:

We have separated the "attack" ("strike", in our case) from strength ("Damage" in our case). One of the things that really made this work out in terms of having "more stats to push" is that we made every extra number of the attacker's successes (attack + roll - Defense + roll= number of attacking successes.) equal to 1 extra point of damage. This only applies to ranged attack and melee attack, but not magic. This results in "attack" being worth more than 'strength", but we made it more difficult to push to compensate for that.

In your case, though, I think it would be easier to just add another spellcaster stat. Separate the "magic attack" from the "magic damage" like you have for melee. As for ranged attacks, if you alter it so that number of successes is equal to extra damage, you can pretty easily increase it's overall damage by giving ranged weapons +attack. (which results in them being harder to avoid, which is an advantage.)

[josh_manga]

@Mechana: To answer your question, initially they would be weaker due to crude/primitive weapons, stick bows, wooden arrows. Such things would be lethal, but not do well against armor. Things like compound bows don't exist yet, and the Blunderbuss is more like a shotgun/birdshot, spreads out, hits multiple targets, but doesn't do much damage. In game terms, this is for balance, if the Ranger was as lethal as the Warrior AND has a ranged attack, why play a Warrior when i can pwn and stay out of melee range? Making Melee just a little stronger gives players an incentive to play a Warrior.

@Goldenspines: Thank you!

@Cognitive Gear: Awesome reply, thanks!
I think what you are calling the "Number of Successes" i've seen called the "Degree of Success" elsewhere. You're saying, if my Attack is 15, and your Defense is 10, i get +5 to Damage? If not, please clarify, it sounds interesting.

I had thought of doing something similar for Ranged combat, but not using the Degree of Success, but using the Degree of Distance (my term). Basically, say, a Longbow has a maximum range of 10 (inches, i use miniatures and scenery to give more visualization to the game and strategy elements to the combat, a lot of the Melee skills require some amount of movement to perform) If i shoot a target at 10 spaces out, i get no bonus, but the closer i am to the target, i get +1 Dmg per space. If i shoot something 5 spaces away, i get +5 Dmg. But if my weapon's range is 20 spaces, and i shoot something 5 spaces away, i get +15 Dmg. See how that works? I haven't actually used this yet, but i'm thinking of implementing it into the rules.

Somehow..... Magic Damage stat escaped me... Thanks for the suggestion, i'll have to see where i can fit that in. I've created an actual character sheet, and right now everything fits on one page, so I have some space constraints.

I've got Mind for attack, Faith for defense, perhaps i could add Force for damage.

Oh, and final question, you said you made it hard to push to compensate for Attack being worth more than Strength. How so?

Do you use a point cost system? Right now i use a point pool to build characters with. 50 points at level 1, and 12 points every level after that. 12 points doesn't spread far, but that just makes leveling up all the more important. Not a bad thing when it only takes 15 Exp to reach Level 2, 40 Exp for Lv 3, 80 Exp for lv 4, and so on.

Last time we played with 20 points per level, and by lv 5 the heroes were unstoppable... not something i anticipated so early on, two-hit-kills on vampires their same level!

On that note, how do you handle boss creation?

Thanks!
josh.

[Cognitive Gear]

@Cognitive Gear: Awesome reply, thanks!
I think what you are calling the "Number of Successes" i've seen called the "Degree of Success" elsewhere. You're saying, if my Attack is 15, and your Defense is 10, i get +5 to Damage? If not, please clarify, it sounds interesting.

I had thought of doing something similar for Ranged combat, but not using the Degree of Success, but using the Degree of Distance (my term). Basically, say, a Longbow has a maximum range of 10 (inches, i use miniatures and scenery to give more visualization to the game and strategy elements to the combat, a lot of the Melee skills require some amount of movement to perform) If i shoot a target at 10 spaces out, i get no bonus, but the closer i am to the target, i get +1 Dmg per space. If i shoot something 5 spaces away, i get +5 Dmg. But if my weapon's range is 20 spaces, and i shoot something 5 spaces away, i get +15 Dmg. See how that works? I haven't actually used this yet, but i'm thinking of implementing it into the rules.

Somehow..... Magic Damage stat escaped me... Thanks for the suggestion, i'll have to see where i can fit that in. I've created an actual character sheet, and right now everything fits on one page, so I have some space constraints.

I've got Mind for attack, Faith for defense, perhaps i could add Force for damage.

Oh, and final question, you said you made it hard to push to compensate for Attack being worth more than Strength. How so?

Do you use a point cost system? Right now i use a point pool to build characters with. 50 points at level 1, and 12 points every level after that. 12 points doesn't spread far, but that just makes leveling up all the more important. Not a bad thing when it only takes 15 Exp to reach Level 2, 40 Exp for Lv 3, 80 Exp for lv 4, and so on.

Last time we played with 20 points per level, and by lv 5 the heroes were unstoppable... not something i anticipated so early on, two-hit-kills on vampires their same level!

On that note, how do you handle boss creation?

Thanks!
josh.

Mm... time to get into the nitty gritty system stuff.

"Degree of Success" sounds like exactly what we use.

The dangerous thing about "Degree of Distance" is that it punishes melee characters for getting close to ranged characters. If that's what you are going for, then it's great. However, for my own tastes, I tend to do the opposite: Punish ranged for being too close.

In game, this means a few things:
1) Ranged damage is the same from any distance, as long as it is "in range".

2) If someone is within melee range, they can roll their melee defense skill (conceptually this is things like physically moving the gun or bow) instead of ranged defense. (If these are separate) Melee characters typically have much better mellee defense than ranged defense.

3) If they are not separate, then give the attack a penalty to hit.

I prefer this, as I think it is more realistic and more balanced. Ranged characters usually get to attack melee characters for a couple turns before the melee character can even start striking back. "Degree of Distance" may also be abusable, depending on how much damage your characters typically do on one hit. Very interesting idea, though. I may have to think about implementing it into specific weapons.

We've gone through a variety of ways to compensate, depending on how the character building facet of the system works. For point based, we made the stat slightly more expensive to buy. When using a slightly more traditional system, we altered the frequency that the base stat contributed to the combat stat*.

If "Attack" and "Strength" are both directly used in combat, this may be fairly troublesome to work out. I've not used a system in which the combat and base stats were unified, but have always liked the idea. I'm not sure how to approach this problem.

Boss Creation:

As a general rule, my bosses have character sheets exactly like the players do. Typically I'll make them a few levels higher than the group, and occasionally give them a unique power or two for the players to work around.

If it's the main antagonist, most of the time I will have a character sheet, but the boss will be more a matter of the players figuring out a way to defeat the boss as opposed to simply using brute force (though that is certainly always an option open to them). I should also note here that as a GM, I tend to obey the rules of storytelling before the rules of the game. I've had a few bosses get killed as a result of very good role playing on the part of the PC's. (I try to not let the PC's in on when I do this, though.)


*Clarification: Base stats are things like "Strength", which determines things like how much you can lift, Combat Stats are things like "Damage" which provides a straight damage boost to your physical attacks. In this case, Damage is derived from your Strength Stat.

[josh_manga]

Right now i've got physical Defense, which applies to both Melee and Ranged, but Melee Skill and Ranged Skill for their respective attacks. The way this works for us is, You can't use RS without a Ranged weapon equipped, and you can't use Ranged weapons on an enemy closer than 2 spaces (point blank limitation). Basically, if you are close enough to see the whites of their eyes, it's too late to shoot. This forces Rangers to use their MS to attack with (Even if they have no Melee weapon) and if that is low then their chances to hit are low, and since Strength doesn't help Ranged damage, they probably wont have much to do damage with.

In my game i don't differentiate between Base and Combat stats, but i guess the difference is there, things like Strength apply to Damage and carrying, while things like Melee Skill applies only to Melee Attacks. I used to use things like Dexterity for attack, but got tired of the semantics and logistics of figuring out the stats' capabilities and limitations, and settled for a flat out Combat term for simplicity. Now, if someone wants to craft something, instead of checking their Dex, they just rely on their Crafting skill. If they have no Crafting skill then they are either stuck, or have to wait till they learn one.

Here is my yahoo group about the game, if you're interested in taking a look. I'm not sure what you can see if you're not a member, but you're welcome to join (there's only 3 of us right now, and it isn't active).

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/scythe_rpg/

Some of the rules are posted there, but most of them are outdated (5 years old or more)

Right now, i'm thinking i may adopt the Degree of Success for Melee and Ranged for the next game, see how it goes.

Thanks for the help!

[josh_manga]

Additional Question

I've thought of a skill, one that increases the utility of Armor for Warrior Types.

Each rank has a point cost to get, and there are 5 ranks total (no skill has more than 5 ranks in my system)

I'll just copy and paste it:

Armor Training~ Increases the effectiveness of Armor worn by 20% per Rank. Rank 1: 20%, Rank 2: 40%, Rank 3: 60%, Rank 4: 80%, Rank 5: 100%. Maximum 5 Ranks. Round fractions to nearest whole number.

So basically, if your armor rating is 10, and your training is rank 1, you get +2, and so on.

The tricky part is that any time i change my armor, take it off, add it on, get more, get less, etc... my Base Rating will change, which changes the value of that percentage. And each time i rank up the skill, the percentage itself changes. I'm just afraid that, for a PnP game this will entail a bit too much calculation, or rather too frequently for the gamers. If it were a computer game that could all be scripted in, but it isn't. The calculation isn't hard with a calculator, but it's still a hassle.

Anyway, does anyone have an idea how to streamline this or improve it so the calculation is easier, or use a different formula to get a SIMILAR result? (obviously a different formula will likely end with a different result, so similarity is my goal here.)

It's been said, "Why not just buy better armor?".

The reason for this is that my current armor list is very limited, but even if it were a hundred pages long it would have to come to an end somewhere. So this leaves it to the warrior with the special training to have an advantage over other people who just buy better armor.

Quick explanation of what armor is. Armor is NOT defense against attack, armor IS a buffer against damage taken. (in my system anyway.)

Thanks for any ideas.
josh.

[josh_manga]

Heyya all!

Just thought i'd pop in and update this.

Last weekend was eventful, we had two games going using the same system i'd been working on. Both went well.

A friend of mine ran a campaign he had designed based off my rules, and i ran a game i had been developing since '05, based off a wierd dream i had.

Both games took over 6 hours, but i'm fuzzy on the actual time it took.

First, my three players made their characters. There was Dragonborn, a Saurian Paladin, The Nameless Wonder (i named him that because his player couldn't think of a name) a Saurian Mage, and Merlin the Revenant Wizard. They all started out at Level 3 because i had calculated this adventure to be done with characters these players had already made, but they opted to make new ones instead.

The three of them started out on the third day of their journey with a family caravan travelling to a large city for a halloween style festival. That evening when they made camp, just one more day off from their destination, they got attacked by a band of thieves. The combat was harrowing, they were outnumbered 2 to 1, and the bandit lord was a Lvl 8. After killing 2 brigands, and wounding one, the rest retreated and the party was able to rest and regen.

The following day they reached their destination by evening, spent some time in the market until they noticed a certain unease; reward posters were hung on every corner for missing persons, and some people in the crowd were whispering about a haunted house attraction that was actually haunted.

After beating the players over the head with my plot stick for a minute or so, they finally decided to explore the house themselves (the 150 gold reward helped). Once in however, they found themselves locked in the basement, with their powers nullified, they were reduced to using melee attacks and their wits to survive. (difficult undertaking since 2/3 of the party were mages, and the Paladin had the only magic healing. No one bought potions or cotton gauze for first aid at CharGen or the marketplace).

The basement had only one exit, a doorway hid behind a moldy tapestry of a white rabbit hunt (a subtle hint to the kind of adventure this was going to be). Once passing beyond that, they found themselves locked in another room with no exit. After spending some time there, a wall opened up and some Shadow Stalkers came out and attacked them. They managed to fend off their assailants and found some healing herbs, then a door opened up and led them to a room with a healing fountain and glowing mushrooms. The players mentioned wanting to eat the mushrooms so many times i'm surprised no one actually did it, which was good because they were poisonous.

After finding a hidden button, the door in the room swung open and the next room they found had a large pit, and on the other side was a red and golden door. They found a loose beam and used it to cross the gap, but another Shadow monster appeared. The Nameless Wonder used a spell (i somehow forgot they couldn't do that yet) and knocked the beast into the wall, which set off the ceiling to start collapsing. They made it out alive though, and found themselves in a round room, the door behind them shut and locked.

In the round room there was a window and a bookshelf. Dragonborn stuck his hand out the window which was too small for the rest of him to fit through, and felt something slimy so he jumped back. Then the three of them each picked a book off the shelf and read them. The first book, a green one, summoned some of those Shadow creatures, which they then defeated with some ease. The second book, a red one, was a diary explaining the plot which involved a magic school and a potion of immortality. The third book, a blue one, summoned a staircase which came down from the ceiling.

Going up, they found yet another round room with a window, a locked chest, and a mirror that cast only a reflection of the room. At this point the Nameless Wonder tried to break his way out through the window, but instead dislodged a key, which they used to open the chest. Inside was a key, a bag of gold, and an oil lamp. After some trial and error, they chose the key and the lamp, and the bag of gold dissappeared from the chest. Merlin then went over to the mirror and saw his own reflection holding the key. He touched the mirror with the key and the stairway that went down now spiraled upward.

Going up to the next floor, they found a room with double high walls, a staircase that went up to the floor above them but only came down half way, and a burning cauldron surrounded by six figures dressed in crimson. They tried to grab and interrogate the wizards but found that they could not touch them, so they were forced to sit back and watch as events of the past replayed before their eyes.

These six wizards had betrayed their classmate, turning him into an undead, and now were trying to finish their immortality spell for themselves before he caught up with them. They failed however when a gigantic hand crashed through the room, sweeping the six of them up in its clutch, and passing through the adventurers as if they weren't there. The walls now also fell down so they could access the stairway up.

In the next room they found a spinning blue crystal, which they spun till it shattered, releasing the hold on their magic, then a Shadow Master appeared and they killed it.

Suddenly waking in an unknown room, they found a crazed man huddled in the corner, and a note addressed to them. Reading the note they found they had been in a trance the whole time and had actually been in this room since they were nocked unconscious in the basement. Scattered in the floor however were shards from the crystal that blocked their magic, later they found another note suggesting that they use the crystal to defeat the immortal wizard. They found out that the crazy dude was one of the missing persons (50 gold reward!), and encountered a mesmerized vampiric maid who was the other missing person (100 gold reward). Dragonborn managed to use part of the Null Crystal to bring the maid back to her senses, but Merlin then brought her unconscious body to a safe room and tried to convince her that he had saved her. Seeing his undead form however, she of course rejected him. Dragonborn also appeared on the scene to convince her that it was actually him, but since he was a Saurian (scaly skin) she rejected him as well and spent the rest of the adventure hiding under the bed.

They then found a note from the badguy inviting them to see him in the attic, which they were able to unlock once they found the key. In the attic they found the corpses of the six wizards who had betrayed the young wizard, and his father, all chained. The wizard (named Tollbert) then explained that it was one of the adventurer's blood that enabled him to make his potion of immortality and that none of their spells or weapons could harm him. He also mentioned some plan about taking over the world or some such nonsense, like all villains are prone to do.

Merlin (or Nameless Wonder, i forget which) then hit Tollbert with the shard of Null Crystal, wich went into his blood stream and purged the immortality potion from his system, so Tollbert took a step back and summoned a Shadow Master into the room. By now each member of the party was Lvl 5, and made short work of the Shadow Master, but Tollbert (Lv 10) hit all three of them with a Lightning Bolt, which killed both mages and left the Paladin with 3 Health. (correction, the Mages were not dead, they were on the brink of death, unconscious).

Now left with a narrow descision, Dragonborn could either heal himself, heal one of the Mages, or attack Tollbert. In the end he banked on his narrow chances of success and managed to take out Tollbert in one final blow (something like 86 Damage, and Tollbert had only 80 to begin with) and saved the day. (Hooray for fighter classes!!!)

The two fallen comerades then revived, the six crimson mages were released from their undeath and met their final resting place, and the vampiric staff were returned to normal human beings. The players then released Tollbert's father from his shackles and earned another 100 gold.

Their characters are all Lvl 6 now, and i hope they will continue to use them in our next adventure as my next plot takes place in the same city, with many more surprises and secrets to uncover.

The combat went fairly well, but i think they party would have done better with a straight up fighter in the mix, and only one Mage and one Healer. There were many times i fudged the rolls i was getting (behind a DM screen) so that the players could succeed and progress (doesn't make for a fun game when the party members die from a minor encounter) but i stuck to my rolls more in the boss type encounters, which made for more tense situations. The final encounter with Tollbert who was twice their level was cinematic to say the least, it was everything i could have hoped for.

Dragonborn got to use his Healing Touch once or twice, but was right next to a dining hall where they could have just as easily regenerated health without spells, but it was still fun to use it i'm sure. The only Mage who was useful as a Mage was Nameless Wonder because he had his Jolt spell. Merlin had more personal effect spells and weapon enchantments, which he didn't get to use but maybe once. It's that player's fault for picking the less useful spells, but i feel the encounter might be a little better if i could have included them.

There was a lot of guesswork going on, and with very little prompting from me the players figured each of the puzzles out, but i don't feel they were too easy, which makes me feel good as the writer. I think the trickiest part of the game is still character creation, which seriously needs a walkthrough guide. Something for me to work on later, but until then i'm the resident expert on Chargen.