"Better" Combat Systems in RPGs - Feedback Welcome!

[Bilharzia]

I think that approaching it from another angle like that.....where the player decides how to deal with a hit to their character....can lead to some interesting takes. Otherwise I think all you'll do is wind up with something that's very much the Armor Class and Hit Point system of D&D, except either more or less invovled than the D&D version.

The idea that anything with HP is the same as D&D is a bit of a red herring because of piles of hit points and escalating levels adding to it, not everything that uses HP has that problem.

I've found another issue with "narrative" systems which is 'narrative fatigue', not only can you describe what has just happened based on a result or a spend, you have to describe what's happened, every time it does. In contrast to that if you have a system which effectively is constructing the story of the moment to moment events because that story emerges out of player choices, the mechanics of the system, and some chance factor, you don't have to continually invent, it's emerging as you go, supported by the system.

 

[JohnSnow]

Eye of the beholder I guess. Those things lean more to plausible than simulationist to me.

When I think simulationist, the games that leap to mind for me are Aftermath! and an old game from late ‘80s by BTRC called Time Lords.

Why do you see separate parry and dodge rolls as simulationist? Those are two entirely different actions. (I’m something of an Eastern (kenjitsu and tae kwon do) and Western (epee) martial arts guy myself.

So, I'll try to explain my thinking, and I grant that this is largely from an early to pre-modern (Renaissance and medieval) European swordplay perspective, although I have studied a variant of Kenpo and done some kickboxing as well...

Typically in a dynamic sword fight, the point is to avoid getting hit, and the tendency is to either evade and interpose your blade, or move, evade and parry, and then wind into a counterattack. It is, in my experience, atypical to opt for just one or the other, as opposed to both. The better you are, the easier it is to prevent an attack from making solid contact, and it all comes down to fighting skill, but the distinction between parrying and dodging can be...murky at times.

Case in point: let's say someone is coming with a fendente (overhead downward cut) for my head, and I sidestep their attack and make a hanging parry with my sword to deflect the downward stroke, then once their strike has been deflected, I carry my blade around with a return cut to their head. I've used this move a lot.

You could say I dodged, because that's the primary move, or you could say I parried, because the blade made contact with mine. Regardless, this is very distinct from simply setting a block or making a slap parry. Or if I'd simply sidestepped, I could potentially have made a quicker counter-thrust. If we try to get into the minutiae of how the fight plays out, the system has to start taking into account the variant choices between those options, and draw a distinction.

Or we could simply leave it at: "Character A used their fighting skill to avoid being struck with a sword, and launched a counterattack." That lets the character's ability be what determines whether the choice was a good or bad one, and subsumes the difference into the randomness of die rolls.

Separately, you sometimes can both parry and dodge, and if they're not combined into a single thing called defense, you can quickly get to the absurdity of the old Palladium system that tried to resolve every single blow and part of the action individually...

A makes an attack roll, and gets a 17.
B rolls to dodge, and gets a 15: Fail.
B rolls his parry, and gets a 9: Fail.
B is wearing Mail Armour (AR 16), so the point of A's sword slips through their armor for 16 points of damage.
B decides to roll with punch/fall/impact for half damage, and succeeds!

Now, after one attack roll, 3 defense rolls, comparing to the AR, and a damage roll, B deducts 8 points of SDC damage - just a nick compared to their total of 40 S.D.C. and 23 hit points.

And since A has 5 attacks per round, we now repeat this for their other 4 other sword strikes. And then we repeat this for every PC and all their adversaries.

This is not hyperbole. It's a 100% realistic scenario from the salad days of the Palladium System. Just fyi, this is at 1st-level. And actually, it's pretty moderate. Ask anybody who played RIFTS.

All that said, I'd be mostly okay with a system where the PC could choose whether to parry or dodge, or some combination as I mentioned above, but it should be either a static defense or a single die roll. IMO.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The idea that anything with HP is the same as D&D is a bit of a red herring because of piles of hit points and escalating levels adding to it, not everything that uses HP has that problem.

I've found another issue with "narrative" systems which is 'narrative fatigue', not only can you describe what has just happened based on a result or a spend, you have to describe what's happened, every time it does. In contrast to that if you have a system which effectively is constructing the story of the moment to moment events because that story emerges out of player choices, the mechanics of the system, and some chance factor, you don't have to continually invent, it's emerging as you go, supported by the system.

I don't know if the Hit Points is a red herring.....my point is more to be cautious because I think using them does tend to wind up with something akin to D&D. Which may or may not be fine, depending on the desired outcome. And yes, there is the possibility that one system that uses HP can be different from another.....I just think the chances are slim, and also that the general pacing will be very similar; the drama of hit points is the attrition.

I can't currently think of any games off the top of my head that use HP that don't largely play the way D&D does. I'm sure there are or could be some, but I can't think of any. Do you have any examples?

As for the narrative system, I think that letting the action determine the stakes and the result is very much in line with the approach I'm talking about. Generally speaking, you telegraph the trouble ahead of time. You make it clear, or at least give a good idea of, what the stakes are. Certainly something like "the dragon gnashes his sword-like teeth at you, and you know you likely only have one shot" sets up a far more dangerous and potentially harmful situation than "the street urchin, weak from hunger and illness, holds a rusty dagger in a shaking hand". I think this approach aligns with your description of "emerging as you go, supported by the system."

 

[JohnSnow]

Conditions, Wounds, Damage, and Death Spirals
So, at this point, I want to take a minute to talk about a system for tracking damage that I've seen variants of in several games. Most recently, this system is in Savage Worlds, but something very similar to it exists in d6 Star Wars, Mutants & Masterminds, and, I believe, True 20.

That system is the Conditions & Wounds system. It works like this: A character starts fine. If they take a hit, and the damage equals their Toughness (Armor provides a bonus), they become "Shaken," and cause a wound for ever "raise." A Shaken character who takes physical damage again is now wounded (and still shaken).

The average PC can take up to 3 wounds (each of which inflicts a -1 penalty) and still function more or less "normally," albeit with penalties. On the fourth wound, the PC is incapacitated, and at this point, the player must make a vigor roll to see how serious the wound is. Failing inflicts a permanent injury (there's a table) and means the PC is bleeding out. If the roll is a critical failure, the character dies. Success means the injury is either temporary until the character is healed of all wounds, or it goes away in 24 hours, even if he doesn't get healed before then. Obviously, if he's healed of all his wounds, this injury goes away too. A player who has Bennies can choose to spend one to make a Soak roll to minimize the damage from an attack with each success and raise absorbing one wound. Soaking all the damage means you lose the "Shaken" condition as well (even if it's from previous damage).

Permanent injuries mean the character might need serious healing magic. Or barring that, a prosthetic or an eyepatch.

"Lesser" NPCs are incapacitated if they take a single Wound. But some NPCs/monsters are resilient (2 wounds), very resilient (3 wounds), or Wild Cards just like the PCs (4 wounds).

And yes, this system does have a "death spiral" of sorts, as a more injured character takes penalties to his actions, including the ones to keep from bleeding out. Personally, I like the idea of characters becoming less effective as they get hurt, but YMMV. Someone who wanted a less granular system could simply do something like Fine, Bloodied (minor penalty), Injured (bigger penalty), and Incapacitated.

The method for determining "wounds" is obviously pretty important in a system like this. Savage Worlds resolves it by comparing the damage roll with a score called "Toughness," whereas Mutants & Masterminds had the Player make a Toughness Save, but the principle is basically the same. And of course, the "realism" quotient of the system is clearly highly dependent on how quickly the PC can recover from "wounds." (FYI, Savage Worlds also has a somewhat neat rule here that helps to draw a line between serious and minor wounds, but I do realize that it's not for everyone).

Personally, I like the balance of abstraction vs. realism here. It doesn't really matter where a character's PC's minor wounds are, until they take one that's substantial enough that it nearly kills them. And that should happen rarely enough that checking location tables at that point bothers me less. For the record, the generic rule on called shots is that they add to damage, and I'd certainly bypass rolling on the injury table if a character was incapacitated by, say, a called shot to the head (because rather obviously, it was to the head).

 

[JohnSnow]

I don't know if the Hit Points is a red herring.....my point is more to be cautious because I think using them does tend to wind up with something akin to D&D. Which may or may not be fine, depending on the desired outcome. And yes, there is the possibility that one system that uses HP can be different from another.....I just think the chances are slim, and also that the general pacing will be very similar; the drama of hit points is the attrition.

I can't currently think of any games off the top of my head that use HP that don't largely play the way D&D does. I'm sure there are or could be some, but I can't think of any. Do you have any examples?

Well, the AGE system uses HP, but Armor functions as DR. Also, the math is rather different, as heroes start with between ~20 (for a low-Con Mage) and ~38 Hit Points (for a high-Con Warrior), and only gain 1d6 + Con per level. Which means by Level 10, the Mage would have about 50, give or take, and the Warrior about 100, meaning they stay in line. After level 10, you only get your Con Score (up to 4, but at least 1 hp per level), so our piddling Con Level 20 Mage now has 60 HP, and his Warrior pal now has 140.

Just so you know, this is a system where a fist does 1d3, a throwing knife does 1d6, a one-handed sword does 2d6, and a two-handed sword or axe does 3d6. And for the record, I don't think Armor is protective enough in the AGE system, but that's rather beside the point.

 

[SavageCole]

@JohnSnow - Palladium is a great system to showcase for the simulationist nightmare, and now I see that you’re talking about a dodge and a parry in the same turn vs. an attack. I totally agree with you there and appreciate your taking the care in the example you shared.

For points of game abstraction, I wouldn’t think of beating a blade as an actual parry but more of an attack. Likewise, simple footwork involved when parrying and preparing a counter attack wouldn’t strike me as a dodge.

But I would suggest the way Mythras, BRP, and Warhammer rule on dodge and parry isn’t in the Palladium family by a long shot.

 

[Bilharzia]

I don't know if the Hit Points is a red herring.....my point is more to be cautious because I think using them does tend to wind up with something akin to D&D. Which may or may not be fine, depending on the desired outcome. And yes, there is the possibility that one system that uses HP can be different from another.....I just think the chances are slim, and also that the general pacing will be very similar; the drama of hit points is the attrition.

I can't currently think of any games off the top of my head that use HP that don't largely play the way D&D does. I'm sure there are or could be some, but I can't think of any. Do you have any examples?

Sure, this is from RQ6/Mythras:

Looking at this section from a character sheet, you see the PC has piecemeal armour, the strongest is the helmet with "AP 5" (Armour points 5) this will protect against 5 points of damage. Each of the 7 hit locations has it's own armour, AP and hit points, HP. In the box labelled "Shield" the locations list are the locations that are warded if the PC is using the shield as a passive ward, the particular shield they are using will block damage over 4 connected locations. Assuming the PC has a weapon in their other hand they can also actively parry with that weapon, leaving the shield in place covering their arms, which are unarmoured, chest and abdomen which if wounded may knock you out.

Let's say this PC is attacked successfully and they fail their parry. As stated, the shield is blocking their central body and arms. The attacker, because they beat the PC's parry now will not only hit, but also is granted a special effect. A special effect might be Trip Opponent, Disarm, and so on, let's say the attacker chooses "Choose Location". Using Choose Location means that they can choose the location they hit instead of rolling a d20 (see the 1d20 list on the left side).

Where does the attacker choose to hit? Let's also say the attacker is using a Celtic Longsword, that does 1d6+2 damage, and the attacker has no damage bonus from their STR and SIZ. The longsword is only a 'medium' sized weapon, so hitting any location warded by the shield will be entirely blocked, if it was a "Huge" weapon, half the damage would get through the shield ward. So that leaves sensible targets as one of the legs or the head. We can see the head is protected by an iron Open Helmet with 5 AP, quite study, and the chances are it will block most of a hit from the longsword. The legs are lightly armoured protected by 1AP hide boots.

The attacker chooses Right Leg, and rolls their damage - they roll a 3, plus 2 is 5 points of damage to the Right Leg, 4 damage goes through leaving 1hp left in that leg. If HP is above zero, it's counted as a minor wound, no other effects. Let's say the roll was a 4, plus 2 is a 6, this would take the leg down to 0hp, now this is a "Serious Wound". The PC has to make an Endurance check to see if they fall prone from the hit, and they are distracted for 1d3 turns as they deal with the pain, this puts them on the defensive - they can move and take defensive actions but they can't attack for those turns. If the PC fails their Endurance skill check, they fall prone and they are now at a disadvantage - their Combat skill is now halved, that's half the chance to defend and attack, the circumstances of the fight has just changed and they are in trouble.

So if something takes a Serious Wound there are immediate consequences depending on where they were hit, Head, Chest and Abdomen have worse consequences than a limb, an arm hit may result in dropping a weapon and so on. Going prone is bad, but there could have been other effects depending on what the attacker chose to do.

All of this is to say - this is how the system differs from D&D. Mythras still uses "hp" but not in a big pile that is ever increasing. Most PCs will never increase their hit points in those locations. You can increase your armour, which is usually very sensible to do, but armour is expensive and may be hard to come by depending on the campaign. PCs, NPCs and creatures will always be vulnerable, critical hits can bypass armour, so even the heavily kitted out warrior is vulnerable to a lucky hit.

 

[JohnSnow]

That's a really fascinating system. I'm intrigued by how it handles locations, HP, and armor. I'm still not entirely certain how I personally feel about having to make a location roll as a default, but I can see how it could work. If I recall correctly, Top Secret, S.I. had a not totally dissimilar system, but I recall it being clunky in play. Or maybe it was just that the fancy picture and wound boxes seemed to make it hard to use hand-drawn character sheets.

I'll give Mythras a read. It certainly seems like it's worth a look.

 

[Bilharzia]

That's a really fascinating system. I'm intrigued by how it handles locations, HP, and armor. I'm still not entirely certain how I personally feel about having to make a location roll as a default, but I can see how it could work. If I recall correctly, Top Secret, S.I. had a not totally dissimilar system, but I recall it being clunky in play. Or maybe it was just that the fancy picture and wound boxes seemed to make it hard to use hand-drawn character sheets.

I'll give Mythras a read. It certainly seems like it's worth a look.

That sheet might look a bit overblown when it comes to the locations, another way of expressing the same thing would something like this:

    5/5
0/4   2/7   0/4
1/5   2/6   1/5

As I used to write in my school textbooks... once you know what you're looking at it's easy to read.

 

[hawkeyefan]

All of this is to say - this is how the system differs from D&D. Mythras still uses "hp" but not in a big pile that is ever increasing. Most PCs will never increase their hit points in those locations. You can increase your armour, which is usually very sensible to do, but armour is expensive and may be hard to come by depending on the campaign. PCs, NPCs and creatures will always be vulnerable, critical hits can bypass armour, so even the heavily kitted out warrior is vulnerable to a lucky hit.

That's definitely very different from D&D. It uses the term Hit Points, but the rest of the system is so significantly different as to create a very different play experience.

I should probably modify my earlier statement to be more about games that have a pool of HP for the PC playing like D&D. The system you've described uses the term Hit Points, but in a significantly different way.