Perfect Combat System? Not too short, not too long, but just right?

So in my other thread I was discussing how I want to run a low-magic, high-risk heist game. We've been playing 3.5 for years now, and frankly, we're all a little bit sick of the mid-high level HP count. Maybe it's just my group, but combat really grinds to a hault after around level 5-7.

I was looking at two new systems, both of which have pieces of what I want, but not exactly perfect. I had referenced the Grim-n-Gritty system as well as the HackMasters system..

Maybe someone here can point me in the right direction, I'm looking for a system that is either a plugin for 3.5 or short enough for me to learn in a few days' time. Something that either eliminates high HP count, or proposes a proper counter to beat them down faster. The Grim-n-Gritty system had a cool HP layout ("there is no HP in real life"), but was a bit unbalanced.

Is there anything out there that speeds combat up, making it somewhat more realistic, but not in an unbalanced way? Most combats should be short bursts in this game (15-30 minutes real time): a clash, then the players escape into a chase scene. Let me know!

Just read a review about Fantasy Craft, does anyone have a clue if it is faster in combat?

No idea about Fantasy craft, but, low magic heist game sounds pretty good for Savage Worlds. Combat is fast, reasonably crunchy with tactics, and no hit points to speak of. Plus, there's a metric ton of free material on the web.

That's my suggestion FWIW.

Base 2E could work, depending on your tastes. The sort of game you describe sounds like my old 2E games back in the day, fast and furious fighting.

Might I suggest E6?

The simple fix is to add a "do and die" rule to the system, this is just what it says, you do it and someone dies. The easiest I have seen was a natural 20 role, save vs death or die. Not as fast as some, but deadly.

But if you just want to knock HP down, you can do a odd or even number, on odd numbers; HPs lost is doubled.

Hussar said:

No idea about Fantasy craft, but, low magic heist game sounds pretty good for Savage Worlds. Combat is fast, reasonably crunchy with tactics, and no hit points to speak of. Plus, there's a metric ton of free material on the web.

That's my suggestion FWIW.

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Downloaded the $10 PDF and it looks AWESOME so far! Thanks a lot! I will consider using this for our session this weekend

@Goblyn: I will take a look at E6 tonight.

Thanks guys, this is very helpful. I'm sure we'll have fun learning a new system either way.

*Thumbsup* Lelldorianx. I played a bit of SW. Wasn't what I was looking for at the time, but, I'm definitely coming back to it.

Lelldorianx said:

So in my other thread I was discussing how I want to run a low-magic, high-risk heist game. We've been playing 3.5 for years now, and frankly, we're all a little bit sick of the mid-high level HP count. Maybe it's just my group, but combat really grinds to a hault after around level 5-7.

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Could be your group. Could also be the particular mix of challenges you are using.

In my experience, combat is grindy primarily against creatures that have straight foward attacks, high hit points, and comparitively low chances to hit. Creatures with really high AC can also be a problem, especially if the party doesn't have access to alot of magic.

An example might be a stock tyrannasaurus zombie. If you apply the zombie template to a tyrannasuarus, you end up with a monster with relatively low CR but nearly 300 hit points. In a straight up fight, it might be a long time before the creature is whittled down. By comparison, spell-casting creatures with the same CR might only have 30 or 40 hit points and would probably go down in a hurry in a straight up fight.

The solution here is IMO to try hard not to design the encounter in a way that plays against the strength of the monster. For the tyrannid zombie, try to design a way for the players to short cut the encounter by luring the zombie into a tarpit, on a bridge that collapses, or what not. In this way, the fight isn't about the grind, but using tactics to take advantage of the monsters stupidity. For the spellcaster, again, try to design the encounter such that a straight up fight is difficult to achieve do to the tactical complexity of the terrain. A spellcaster with low hit points begs for an encounter with some combination of cover, concealment, moving terrain (conveyer belts, turning gears, rapids, tides, waves, falling trees, forest fire, traps, sliding doors, etc.), and difficulty moving (difficult terrain, gaps requiring balance, climb, jump checks to cross).

The other problem is you might be dealing with a group without enough power gamers. If your group is role play heavy and doesn't feature characters with alot of combat optimization, then 3.5 in particular is problimatic at high levels because the 3.0 monsters were upgraded on the assumption of some degree of combat optimization. If your party of 7th level characters aren't doing 40-50 damage per round against low AC targets, you might want to consider that for whatever reason you are lagging behind the power level expected for your PC's character level. In that case, its up to you as a DM to compensate by reducing the CR of challenges that your party faces down to a level appropriate for what your PC's can actually handle in the time frame you want.

There is nothing inappropriate about having a campaign where the assumed power level is different than the default.

As for jumping to another system, that might in fact shorten combats depending on the system, though the hit points themselves aren't really in my opinion a strong factor in whether combat plays quickly or slowly. However, if the problem is encounter design or lack of system mastery by your players (deliberate or otherwise), it is certainly no gaurantee that jumping to a different system will fix the problem.

Combat as a skill challenge.